My Perfect Disaster
by WordyAF
Summary: "Ain't no one who knows Brooklyn better than Spot and ain't no one who knows Spot better than Trout." Its always been that way, Trout at Spot's side, but once they get separated in the aftermath of the strike rally, Trout meets a girl who turns his thoughts about himself upside down. Six years later, he never thought he'd find her again while trying to find himself. T for language
1. Prologue

He was waiting when the workers started to stream into the steel mill. "Trout?" Scat yelped, "What are you doing here?" He looked around nervously before gripping Trout's arm and dragging him around the corner, away from the front door. "You shouldn't be here, Kid." FIfteen year old Trout started to back away, but Scat grabbed him by his shirtfront. "What is it that you want?"

'Help,' he signed, but after so long, Scat didn't understand so he swallowed his pride and grunted, "H'lp."

"Kid, you can't be here and I can't help you!"

Trout grunted again and motioned at his arm. The broken bones were the whole reason he was in this mess, and they were broken because of Scat.

Scat's eyes rested on the sling that still supported the weak arm for a few seconds before he peered back around the building. "You got about a minute to spill and then I gotta go before they come looking."

Trout came prepared and readily handed over a note to the man. _**My girl is missing. Told her mother that she and I were running away together, never made it to me. You know people who can help me find her. You owe me.**_

Scat snorted derisively. "How do you know she didn't just leave, Trout? Girls do stuff that don't make no sense!"

Trout glared at him, not exactly sure of what happened between Kisser and him all those years ago, but knew that it was her he was talking about, not Jo. _**Sheltered. Doesn't do stuff like that!**_

"But you get that she might not want to be found?"

He nodded and signed 'please.'

Scat sighed and took his hat off, running his fingers through his eternally tousled hair. "Look, I don't really want you associating with my people. I don't want them getting no ideas about you. Come back at seven thirty, wait here, out of sight and I'll take you to meet someone."

Around the corner they both heard someone bellow, "Painten! Let's go!" They stiffened and waited to see if the voice's owner was going to follow, but he didn't.

He put his hat on and steeled his face. "Seven thirty sharp, I ain't waiting around for you. You get one favor, after that, I don't ever want to see your face round these parts again. You got me?" Trout nodded and thanked Scat frantically. "Don't thank me, just get out of here."

That night, he and Scat moved silently through the streets together, picking their way along Washington Avenue. It took an hour or so, but true to Scat's word, Carlos found them. He jumped down from a fire escape landing right in front of them and stood with his arms crossed over his chest. He was tall and still a bit lanky with arms and legs that were too big for the rest of him. It was so foreign to Trout to be snuck up on that he nearly wet himself when Carlos' feet gracefully hit the street. With an amused sort of smile on his face, he began to circle them. "Painten," he greeted quietly, "I told Mick that I wasn't messing with his shit anymore."

"How's it rolling, Carlos?" Scat asked, ignoring the question. "Think I got something here that you'll like."

Carlos looked Trout up and down, smirking. "I dunno, Ted, he don't look like my type." His keen, blue eyes roamed over both of them, never stopping for long. Trout watched him carefully. His hair and skin were dark, but his eyes glowed an eerie blue out of his dark complexion. Carlos stood straight and proud, giving Trout the impression that he used the gangs and their connections to benefit him, more than he let the gangs use him. That was something that Trout could respect. "You got a name?"

"This here's T…"

"Eli," Trout interrupted, not looking at either of them. He'd carefully picked that name not so long ago, because unlike the name his mother gave him when he was born and his Newsie name that Spot gave him at seven, he could say it without getting stuck nearly every time he tried and he only tried because of her.

Scat looked at Trout, he could feel the surprised look on his face even though he couldn't make himself look up at them. "Like I told you," Scat said, covering his shock with charm, "Carlos is the best. Trained by the best to find what don't want to be found." He pounced on the kid, locking him under his arm in a headlock and roughing up his hair. "With this puss, people is practically begging him to let them spill their guts to him." Breaking free from Scat's grip, Carlos straightened his clothes, grumbling to himself in Spanish and shooting Scat dirty looks.

"I ain't interested in whatever Mick wants."

"Relax. This is personal, making good on a favor I owe," Scat assured. "You got somewhere we can go to talk?"

"I was having a drink when I got word that you were looking for me. I've got a table back at Moriarty's. You can come, if you can stand the heat." Scat blanched, his jovial buddy-buddy charisma dropping and leaving him to stare wide eyed between the two younger boys.

Trout raised an eyebrow at Scat and tilted his head towards Carlos. The man's green eyes dropped to the sling that held his arm, and Trout watched him struggle. He swallowed loudly and stuffed his hands in his pockets. "All right," he conceded. "Lets go." They followed Carlos to a tavern and slid into a booth. Scat tipped his bowler hat low over his eyes, slumping down low in the booth.

Carlos lounged, as comfortable as could be, that same amused look on his face as he watched Scat's discomfort. "A Brooklyn Newsie and a Dockside Boy walk into a bar…Jesus, there's so many directions I could take that, and all of them are funny. Here I thought I'd seen everything." Trout chuckled into his glass, nearly snorting ale up his nose, but Scat just hunkered down further, grumbling something about piping down.

The two younger ones watched each other across the table, and something about the intelligence inherent in Carlos' face and a sense of familiarity he carried with him made Trout forget himself. 'Will you help me find her?' he signed.

Carlos sat forward, watching intently, but his brow furrowed and he looked to Scat. "What did he say?"

"Hell if I know," Scat said flatly, sitting back and draining his beer.

Carlos raised an eyebrow at Trout who jerked his head subtly towards the door. Carlos smirked and nodded. "I think we got this, Ted. Thanks for hooking us up." He offered a hand to Scat who took it while looking questioningly at Trout. Scat wasn't what he needed right then. He needed someone willing to listen.

'Fine,' he signed, and Scat seemed to recognize the simple gesture. 'Go.' The man stood to leave but Trout reached out to stop him, signing 'thank you.'

Scat smiled sadly, "Ain't nothing worse than losing the girl that don't seem to see the stuff that ain't so great about you." He nodded at Carlos pointing a thick finger in the skip trace's face, "I hear back that anything happens to him and you better hope you're as good at hiding as you is at finding."

"He's grown, he can take care of himself," Carlos assured. They waited for Scat to clear out before continuing their discussion.

"Tell me who we're looking for and I'll do my best." Carlos said, leaning forward in his seat, no long lounging about just to make Scat more uncomfortable. He was ready to work. Trout pulled a paper he wrote earlier in the day out of his pocket and slid it across the table. On it he had written every detail he could think of about JoAnna, her habits, her likes, where her parents lived, where she lived at the school, what she was wearing the last time he saw her, everything. He even included the picture she gave him. The string that she said was tied to each of their hearts, connecting them forever, tugged as Carlos' hand covered her and pulled her towards him. "Knowing Painten and all of his…lady issues, he must have already tried to tell you that odds are in favor of her being shacked up somewhere living her life, right?" Trout nodded soberly and picked up his pencil. He didn't bother with grammar, Carlos saw him for what he was.

 _ **Special. Innocent. Wanted me to run away. I needed money. Left her family a note. Sounded like she was coming for me. She said that she was a bird in love with a fish and we would live where we please. They call me Trout, who else would be the fish? There's something missing.**_

Carlos took the paper, the photograph and ripped the sheet they were writing on out of the notepad. "Like I said, I'll see what I can do." He shuffled the paper some more, looking through the information, seemingly committing at least some part to memory. Trout knocked on the table, and rubbed his thumb against his forefinger. "I don't want your money, not today. If I need resources to follow a lead on her, I'll find you."

'Why?' Trout signed, cursing himself a bit because he kept forgetting that no one understood the gestures now. "W-w-why?" he stammered.

Carlos smiled, "Call it a hunch, but it just feels like the right thing to do."

Seven years later, Carlos Fuentes sat in the back of Moriarty's Tavern, feeling a strong sense of deja vu as he watched the same black haired, blue eyed kid in a similar state of desperation and despair. Eli Cooper and he had struck up a strange, wary friendship over the years, each one afraid to allow the other to see too much, because they each knew that the tiniest admission would allow the other an enormous window into their very broken souls. They were both too perceptive for their own good and both had near mortal wounds on their hearts that they felt the burn of each and every day. While Carlos wanted to be back at his apartment, researching the job he was on for Barkers and hunting down the widow of one of the gang boss's debtors, he would stay until reinforcements arrived to drag Trout back to Manhattan to the farewell party they were throwing for him. Carlos would do this because it was his failure that was making Trout leave.

He'd delivered the news about a month before, showing up at the front door of St Xavier's School while Eli was teaching. He'd waited out in the street while the headmistress, the missing girl's aunt, retrieved his old friend so that he could say the words that he'd done everything in his power to not say for all these years. "The last lead dried up, Eli...It's time to put it to rest. There are no more leads to follow. They all fall apart." Eli's hands immediately dug into his pockets and pulled out his billfold, but Carlos pushed it away, "I won't take your money. She isn't coming back, Eli, you have to know that by now." The other man's dark head bowed and he nodded, his bright eyes studying the cobblestones underfoot.

JoAnna left her house that October day, claiming that she had accidentally packed something belonging to the school in her belongings and needed to return it quickly, but instead of going to the school, she went to Grand Central station and found a nearby pawn shop. There, she sold a red silk dress, a pearl necklace and earrings, a fine beaded handbag, a stereopticon and a set of slides and a pair of tortoise shell hair combs. With her money she bought a second hand carpet bag and then went to the station for two westbound train tickets leaving the next morning. Besides the items later found at the pawn shop, the only things that anyone could say were missing from her room were her clothes that she used for working at the school, a single pair of her plainest boots, a book and three stereopticon slides. But thats where everything fell apart. Who had the second ticket? Every time he thought he had some sort of a grasp on what she did between tucking herself in and the maid pulling open the curtains to reveal an empty bed, it fell through his fingers like sand. He couldn't do it anymore.

Eli shook Carlos' hand and smiled half heartedly, before going back in to work. He resigned his teaching position later that same week and made the decision to leave the city and head west. This was his last night in New York. The other former newsboys who worked at David Jacobs' grand Benjamin Hotel were throwing him a going away party in a few short hours. Instead of packing or making last minute visits to old friends he might not see again, though Trout sat at three o'clock in the afternoon, drunk off his rocker, pounding out dark, brooding songs on an out-of-tune, beer soaked piano. The owner called Carlos in and he sat watch, waiting for Racetrack to come and retrieve a very drunk Trout.

Quiet filled the room and it pulled Carlos from his brooding thoughts. The cover slammed down over the keys, nearly tipping the bottle of amber liquid sitting precariously on the music stand to the floor as Eli stood. He leaned heavily on the old upright, his eyes heavy lidded and unfocused. He listed side to side as he crossed the room and flopped down in a seat across from Carlos, the narrowly saved bottle of whiskey giving a heavy thunk as he set it on the tabletop. "Keeping that bottle all to yourself, are you?" Carlos asked quietly.

Eli raised a thick eyebrow as he brought the bottle to his lips. "Mmm-hmm," he hummed into the bottle, taking a deep swig, too far gone to even wince at the burn as the cheap liquor slid down his throat. He let it fall heavily back to the table and regarded the Spaniard carefully. "D-d-d-doing hhhhhhhere?" Between the ridiculous amount of whiskey in his system and the speech impediment that he mostly overcame after moving on from the newsboy's lodging house, he was nearly impossible to understand.

"Babysitting you until Tony gets here."

Eli glared, "D-d-d-don't nnnnnnnnneed a b-b-b-buh...b-b-b-bah..." He scrubbed his face.

Carlos chuckled a bit darkly, "You remember where you're supposed to be in a bit?" Eli groaned and laid his head down on the sticky tabletop. He was so still for a few minutes that Carlos was starting to feel relieved, thinking that his stammering friend finally gave in to the alcohol and passed out. He settled back in his seat and checked his watch. He sent for Racetrack over an hour ago.

Suddenly, Eli sat up, glowering like a child. "Wwwwwwwwanna go." He stood up abruptly, knocking his chair over, and started wobbling towards the door.

"Eli, wait for Race," Carlos groaned, putting his feet up on a chair. "He'll be here soon, and you can catch a nap at the hotel and sleep some of that rotgut off."

"Nope," Eli answered from the door, "g-g-g-going. Shhhhhhhhhhhit to d-d-d-do." He started to shrug into his coat, when the door opened and Racetrack Higgins blocked his way out. The larger man grunted in frustration and clumsily gestured for Race to move.

"Sorry, Buddy, the only place you're going is back to the Ben with me," Race said soberly, nodding his thanks to Carlos. Trout swayed on his feet. Race sighed, his disapproving demeanor softening. "I got the hotel carriage outside. You can sleep it off on the ride back." Trout nodded and fought his way into his coat. Race and Carlos waited for Trout to stumble his way out to the carriage before Race looked accusingly at his old friend. "I don't even want to know why you knew he was here drunk off his ass, or that he was supposed to be at the Benjamin."

"Its my job to know," Carlos answered, masking his mild annoyance with a bit of sardonic amusement. "I thought we made that clear on the train to Chicago."

"You ain't, ya know... on the job with him, are you?"

"Well, I couldn't say if I was, but since I'm not, no. He and I have known each other awhile. Nothing for you to worry about, Tony. Eli's good people. Go get in that carriage before he forgets what he's waiting for and wanders off without you. He isn't the most patient of people, likes to take matters into his own hands if things take too long."

Race grinned, "Don't I know it." His dark eyes fell on the mostly empty bottle on the table and visibly slumped. "Please, God, tell me you two shared that."

Carlos smirked and chuckled deep in his throat, "I don't drink whiskey."


	2. Chapter 1

She was always the first one awake, staring out the window at the cold, morning moon waiting for the daylight to come back and chase away the racing thoughts that plagued her as she pretended to sleep. When she was busy, they were just nagging whispers at the back of her mind. But at night, when Gordon was snoring beside her peacefully, they screamed. Their words tumbled around her ears in a jumble that she was helpless to understand. Gordon rolled over in his sleep, throwing an arm across her body, pinning her to the mattress. Her heart raced, she had to get out. She couldn't be trapped. It was too hot, too stifling. She had to fight to stay calm enough to not throw his arm off of her like it was a python trying to suffocate her. Slowly, carefully, she wiggled out from under it and slipped quietly across the cabin's dirt floor.

Her imagination was always her greatest comfort. It kept her company through her lonely, prim childhood. Books and pictures stood in the place of the family that ignored her and shoved her into the hands of nannies and governesses and the heroes and heroines of literature were her friends. She perched in her tree, in her yard that was surrounded by the high wall and wrought iron gates, that kept the city out and away from her. Her body nestled in the crook of a branch two stories up, her deep dark chocolate brown hair adorned with flowers who's stems she wove together into an intricate crown and tucked into her braid. Bare feet, brown with sun and dirt, dangled and kicked like a child on a swing and the flowers that fell while she worked peppered the sparse grass at the base of the tree. A basket dangled from a neighboring tree branch, holding her only other companions beside her imagination: Jane Austen, H.G. Wells. Jules Vern, Edgar Allen Poe, Rudyard Kipling, Hans Christian Andersen and another case full stereopticon slides.

Her maid, Cora, used to scold her for looking down her nose at all the niceties of high society life. "What you see as a cage looks and awful lot like luxury that I can't even imagine." She remembered those words verbatim. They made her really look at the girl who dressed her, did her hair and ran her bath for the first time, maybe ever. That's the thing about living in a fantasy world, sometimes the real people just slipped by without notice. Cora was only two years older than she was, but wore those years as if they were twenty. Her face had the lines of concern on it and her blue eyes were always serious. Her dark blonde hair was pulled back into a tight, serviceable chignon, not the big, teased pompadour that her own hair would be put into once all the blossoms were extricated. How could the two years between fifteen and seventeen be so far apart, JoAnna wandered. Was it just years? Or were those troubles that she could never understand from her peaceful cage written over Cora's face. Within moments she had a very romantic and desolate past figured out for Cora in her head. She was like The Little Matchstick Girl, only she escaped and was taken in and given a job in the Witten house before she could perish in the cold, and was brought up by the cook, then worked her way up to being a young ladies maid… "Why can't you just be the peaceful, tranquil, well-bred young lady that you're supposed to be? If not for the sake of your own happiness, then so you don't send me to an early grave?"

JoAnna pushed aside her musings about Cora's past and leaned over to kiss her maid on the cheek, "I feel like Jane Eyre can answer better than I can. 'It's vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquility: they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it.' My life is nothing but tranquility, Cora. Its nothing but tiny little steps, floaty dresses, fluffy hair, embroidery and tea cakes. My body and my mind crave adventure, action; sights and sounds and smells that others don't even know about! People and places that other eyes have hardly touched!"

Cora looked deep into JoAnna's coffee colored eyes, "Your adventures have a tendency to endanger my employment."

She'd run away, thinking at the time that her life would be one great romantic adventure. She'd have her great love by her side and they would travel the world. Instead, she made it as far west as Wichita, Kansas all alone. No great love. No adventures. Just prairie scrub and heartbreak. She knew now what made Cora look so much older. She now understood fully what hardship and poverty, hunger and servitude did to a person. She understood The Little Matchstick Girl and why the child curled up and died in the cold. She understood because she had Gordon. Gordon took her away from the misery she found on her own in Wichita and gave her this existence with him on the Eastern plains of Colorado. He needed her. He never stopped telling her how he needed her, even though his actions said something else. The truth was that he couldn't be alone and she needed him, so they made do together.

Soon the sun would come, and she would be ready the moment the light and limited warmth hit her. Dressed, with her hair put up as modestly as possible, she started the fire and put a kettle nearly soundlessly. By the time the sun rose and brought her husband along with it, breakfast was on the stove and coffee was in the percolator. She stared out of one of the two windows in the little cabin, a tin mug of coffee pressed in the indent between her breasts, trying to press it's warmth and comfort into the organ that seemed dead. Her life was nothing like she expected it to be. He ate his eggs and watched her with big blue puppy eyes. She owed him her affection, her attention. He saved her, he fed her, he clothed her, he took her in when no other man would dare. He gave her a home, and a life that she didn't have to be ashamed of and she owed him everything. "When you're mad at me, I can taste it in your cooking." He pushed his plate away and his chair out and crossed his arms over his chest expectantly. Though he was slight and childlike, with a well trimmed beard to help make him look his twenty seven years, he had the ability to destroy her.

He looked like the most harmless, innocuous person alive and it served him well. That was how he hooked her, after all. He reeled her in like a fish when she was ruined, tainted and taken advantage of. For so long, she put her trust in the type of people who preyed on her kindness and naïveté. The person she'd trusted over anyone else abandoned her and left her to find her own way, but her isolated childhood left her with no ability to judge the intentions of others. She'd been taken advantage of in every way it was possible to be taken advantage of and her broken state made it oh so easy for Gordon Flaherty to slide into her life. His innocent looks and sweet, doting flattery were no match for the weak walls she put up. She was eating out of his hand, married and ensnared in no time. He smiled, but it wasn't nice looking, and purred, "Come on, Dove. Give me a smile. You're so pretty when you smile." She shrugged him off with a small hmph. "Dove, don't be that way," he whined. He twisted a piece of her hair between his fingers, "You used to be so pretty; maybe if you smiled once in awhile you'd look like you used to." She flinched at the compliment. She knew what she was, what happened to her. Her eyes searched his face, wondering why she stayed here. He was impossible to read, and impossible to get rid of.

"I'd like to go to town." A flicker of fear flashed in his blue eyes. It brought to mind a similar but sharper pair of blue eyes from her past, from New York. She closed her eyes, willing the image away. Now was not the time to relive all of that. Not while Gordon was right in front of her. Much as he was a scoundrel, he was obsessively jealous of the love from her childhood. The one that closed her off to him.

"You don't need to be caught up with those hicks," he said, smiling apologetically and cupping her face in both of his hands. They were rough, but small, barely bigger than her own. She had to ignore the ghostly feeling of a much larger, ink-stained hand that once made her feel like she could do anything, so long as that hand was close by. "My good name is the only thing that protects you." Those words were as good as a block of ice to her stomach. She couldn't go out there. People who knew what happened always thought it was her fault, that she asked for it. The tears started flowing, despite her efforts to choke them back. "I can't stand to let a bunch of small town busy bodies tear you apart. You're safe here." She sighed and leaned her head back against him. "Don't you trust me, my Dove?" he whispered in her ear.

"Of course I trust you," she answered, her voice never raising above that whisper. "I'm just so lonely." There were no books in this house, no pictures. Her imagination was her enemy in Gordon's home. She sniffled and turned her head to stare out at the cold prairie. Just across the pasture, maybe two miles away, was the Fletcher ranch. Gordon picked up work there sometimes during calving season and when it was time to take part of Mr. Fletcher's heard to market. Mr. Fletcher had a wife and so did his foreman. "Maybe... I could just go meet the women at the big ranch..." She knew it was a mistake from the moment it slipped out. His eyes grew dark as his pupils dilated, taking the soft watery look out of them. Her ribs clenched inwards.

He snorted derisively and she cringed away from the sound. "I'm not sending you there to be corrupted by those women. They're dirty, street trash." Suddenly, her hair was wrapped tightly around his fist, forcing her to look up at him. "The brother and his wife do nothing but go back and forth between screaming at one another and humping like spring rabbits." He gripped tighter, staring down at her, his eyes more pupil than iris. "And Fletcher must have been plum out of his mind caring for those boys to have decided to marry that wild, old-maid sister like he did. Those are not the kind of people you need to be around, getting ideas from, you hear me?"

With her head held back at an uncomfortable angle and her hair pulling out of her head, her tolerance for his pessimism about other people was low. "I just want a friend, Gordon! I'm a city woman, and I am trash! What could they do to corrupt me? As you so kindly pointed out, I'm already sullied! What more could they possibly do!" She was weak and he knew it, and her words wouldn't go unpunished.

He shoved her down by her head and she slid across the cabin's dirt floor, feeling her skirt and the skin on her thigh rip. Her face collided with the table leg and she groaned as she cupped her cheek with her trembling hand. "If you've got it so bad here then you are welcome to hike your happy ass back to Denver whenever you want, JoAnna," he hissed, slamming his hat onto his head. "Just don't expect anyone else to see past what you did like I did. Be gone by the time I get back, if you're going. If you're still here, you better be ready to behave yourself." He stormed out to hitch up the wagon a moment later, leaving her in a heap on the dirt floor.

A cold splash of water washed away the dirt and blood from her scrapes and soothed her bruises. She wondered if anyone from town even remembered that Gordon had a wife. She wondered if the other women he went to see knew he was married. She wondered if he treated them they way he treated her as she angrily yanked the old carpet bag out from under the bed and propped it open, ready to take her three dresses and a nightgown. It wouldn't stay open though and in her frustration she let out a yell and threw it across the one room cabin. Her worn copy of Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book slid out of the bag and across the floor, all that was left of the girl who left New York.

The pages were stiff and warped with water damage. It opened with a creak, releasing the musty smell of paper, bookbinder's glue and printer's ink. She half expected to see the boy who changed her projected in the room as the acrid smell of the ink filled her nose. It smelled like him, the smell of ink was somehow permanently impregnated in all of his clothes back then and she had to keep herself from stuffing her nose deep into the spine and inhaling the smell like an opium addict inhales smoke. In the middle, tucked in between the dog-eared pages were all the pieces of her heart that she kept safe from Gordon. The pieces that always had and always would belong to Eli. Her favorite slides from the stereopticon that used to accompany her everywhere she travelled, taking her away from her boring, prim surroundings and letting her imagine a different life for herself that one of corset laces and tea cakes. When she stared into the stereopticon, she memorized every leaf, every crag and every sandy ripple with her dark eyes, a brown so deep and dark that hard pupil from the iris became one. Her brain thought up fantastic adventures that she would have in those places. The fantasies were more tangible to her than her reality and they were what got her through her stuffy days.

In India, she would hunt for vanilla beans and cinnamon trees. She would ride elephants and tame tigers while dancing to citar music draped in brightly colored silk. Her hair would be painted with vermilion and her body ornamented with gold bangles. Her mind was so strong and rich that she could smell the vanilla and cinnamon, turmeric and cardamom and the bright lemongrass and deep green of the jungle foliage. She could feel the slick bolts of plum and saffron colored silk as they slipped across her skin and the flake of the intricate clay paintings on her hands and feet.

Staring at the dunes of the Sahara, she could feel the grit of the sand between her toes and the burn of harissa on her tongue. She could smell the citrus and the sweet dates and figs in the market stalls. She would ride flighty Arabian horses, small and dainty and swift, through the sands and bring back the treasures of the Pharoh's. Her knapsack would be full of scarabs made of jewels the size of crabapples and tablets that gave away the secrets of the sun god Ra.

In the West Indies, she would drink nothing but coconut milk and dance like a savage on the sandy beach while the calm waves rolled in, wearing nothing but seashells on her bosoms and a thatch skirt that swayed and rustled with her every move. She would bathe naked in a perfectly picturesque waterfall before feasting on pig that was roasted whole in a hole in the sandy beach and covered in banana leaves.

And in the Rockies she would climb high peaks with a pick axe and pan for gold in a freezing stream. She would sit in a high meadow and paint wildflowers surrounded by snowcapped peaks and aspen groves before eating a supper of fresh caught river trout and snuggling to sleep by a roaring fire, wrapped in a pile of bear skins. Oh yes, her life would be grand if she had anything to say about it. Someday.

Someday had come and gone, and now, holding the slides up to the light, she felt nothing. There were no more fantasies for her. They were just see through pictures of places she would never see. She stuffed them back into the book along with the notes he used to write her. None of it helped, except to remind her that her heart was still there, still beating despite still being broken. Six years, four months and twenty six days later and he still occupied her thought most days, especially the days when Gordon was bad at hiding his dalliances. Her whole world was supposed to be at her fingertips the night she ran away, but it ended up being the night her world fell apart. Despite the familiar tug of the string that she used to say connected their hearts, she had to stop thinking about Eli. He must have known, even then, that she wasn't worth it. The only person she had was Gordon, and despite all of his flaws, he was the only man who would look at her now. She put her book back in the carpet bag and slid both back under her bed. She hung her dresses back on their pegs on the wall and went about tidying up the house. Still, as she washed her dishes and swept her floor, she kept pausing to rub at her breastbone, sure that she could feel that tug in her chest, and cursed herself for dredging up all of those memories.


	3. Chapter 2

He'd never seen a sky like the one above him. The sun in New York never seemed that bright, nor the heavens so blue. The clouds were so close it felt like he could touch them. Thin air rasped down into his lungs as he stared at the wide open prairie around him. Cold, golden green prairie spread out around him, interrupted the tall thin lodgepole pines that grew in dense groves around the edges of the cleared land. The far away peaks of the Rockies were still capped in white and his heart ached at the sight. JoAnna's tales about bear skins and river trout roasted on an open fire and meadows full of wildflowers high above the rest of the world stayed with him all these years in acute detail. He pulled his coat tighter around himself as he knocked on the front door of the white clapboard farmhouse. The door slammed open and he jumped out of the path of two little boys, screaming at the top of their lungs, as they bombed off the porch and chased each other off into the tall grass. "That's right, get outta here, ya hooligans! Get to the barn and do your chores!" A tall blonde man sauntered out of the house after them with a lazy sort of smile his face. He leaned against the doorframe and his deep, brown eyes fell on the stranger on his porch. "Can I help you?" He had a charismatic, buddy-buddy charm that could put anyone at ease.

With a deep breath and a shove down of the nervous butterflies in his stomach Eli quietly said, "I'm llllook...looking for Marta Ffffffletcher and Ssssssspot C-c-con-a-lon." He winced at the mispronunciation. As per usual, he spoke slowly, each word carefully curated and cautiously executed, but he hated saying names wrong. Names were important.

It was his inability to say his own name that got him into trouble at fifteen. The rally for the Newsboy's Strike was what started it all. One of the goons paid to round them all up broke his arm while he was scuffling with Scat and Scat let them haul him away. At the courthouse, Trout rose slowly, grimacing and wincing with every movement. Anything that was not slow and controlled pulled the air from his lungs sharply and stopped every muscle in his body. He was dizzy with the pain of having his broken arm wrenched behind his back and cuffed. "Get a move on!" They barked at him, but his only concern was not moving too fast, not puking on them and not passing out and falling out of the wagon. He breathed a short lived sigh of relief once he was on the ground. He'd been stuffed in a wagonload of boys and didn't know any of them, no one could speak for him or even knew that he might need them to. "Name?" Trout looked at the guard bewildered. He knew he couldn't say Trout. He'd tried, sitting on the rooftop alone where no one could hear him, but it never came out. Cooper was much the same and he'd never even tried to say his given name, Eliot. He looked around, praying for a well timed entrance of one of his friends, anyone from Brooklyn and most of Manhattan knew him and could speak for him. But no such luck.

He decided to give it a shot and let out what, in his head, was his first name. What came out was just noise. A jumble of mismatched syllables. The cops looked at him a moment before one of them grabbed him and threw him in a small cell. "When you're ready to talk, we'll be ready to take those cuffs off of you."

He stared at the closed door, his skin prickling and clammy and his face pale, unable to comprehend what was happening. He wished his arm was no longer attached because that would hurt less than it did right then. He tried to whistle, but didn't have his fingers free to do his loud whistle. No one could hear him. He leaned over until his cheek was on the floor with his injured arm resting on his back. It was the only way he could think to sit so that his left arm wouldn't pull on the right. He knew he would be in that cell until they either tried him under a false name and let Snyder try to beat a voice out of him at the refuge or forced him to speak again and decided he was incompetent and sent him to an asylum. Neither option was very cheerful. He burrowed deep inside himself, where the pain was only an afterthought and the hopelessness wasn't quite so overwhelming and tried to fall asleep.

Names were important. The time he spent in that cell because he couldn't give his set him on a path that he never would have considered before the strike. It separated him from the family he'd found and stuck tightly to at seven years old, and forced him to learn to take care of himself. "She ain't here," the cowboy said, squinting off into the distance. Eli felt like the man punched him in the gut. The man chuckled at his reaction. "She ain't gone for good. Come on in, she and Darcy will be back soon…at least I hope they will." A sudden look of mock horror crossed his face and Eli understood how his old friend fell for the cowboy in front of him. The blonde looked him up and down and gave him another charming smile. "Winslow Fletcher, but everyone calls me Fletch." He held his hand out and the younger man shook it.

"Eli C-c-c-cooper. She'd call me T-t…" He winced, he was tired from the long journey and his mouth was getting sticky. His own name had always been hard for him.

"Trout," Fletch supplied with an easy grin. Eli followed the cowboy into the house and looking around warily. While there were obviously parts of the house that were there before her, this was Marta's home. Fletch showed Eli to a couch in a cozy living room. "You settle in here, I'll go make us some coffee while we wait for the girls to get back." The warm chenille of the sofa, the soft cushion and the general feeling of homeyness from Marta's little touches all over the place: a rocking chair on a rag rug by a fire place with a basket of mending within reach. Hairpins, single hairpins on every surface because sometimes she just couldn't deal with them stabbing her in the skull. It was all so comfortable, so right, so what he needed to feel that he let out a deep sigh and was asleep in mere moments.

He woke to a quiet giggle and someone prying his eyelid open with tiny fingers. He clamped them closed as his brain tried to figure out what was happening. Trying to figure out where he was and why. "Hey!" A male voice rang out, much harsher than the cowboy's. "What did I tell you, huh? Quit that and get outta here before I tell your muddah what youse doing." Eli would know that voice anywhere and his lips smiled even though his eyes weren't open yet. The owner of the giggle ran away on quick, tiny feet. "You awake? Or smiling in ya dreams, sleeping beauty?"

"'M awake," he mumbled forcing his eyelids open.

"Holy shit!" Spot jumped back in surprise, tripping over his own feet and falling to the floor. The man before him was not his lanky, slight friend. If it weren't for the voice and the silvery grey-blue eyes, Eli wouldn't have recognized him at all. He was tanned, his hair bleached to an ashy blonde in the harsh mountain sun and the scar on his face from the tenement was jagged pink line across his forehead and down his cheek. While he wasn't broad, he looked healthy, muscular and nothing like the skinny kid he grew up with. "Trout? That is you, right?" Spot asked in a small voice. He looked around a bit shiftily.

"It's mmmmme." Spot grinned, not just his signature smirk, but an honest-to-god grin, and jumped up from the floor, yanking his old friend to his feet. Eli tensed as Spot pulled him close, he half expected to be put in a choke hold, but instead he was hugged.

A low, throaty but decidedly female chuckle caught their attention. "Hard work agrees with him, don't you think, Trout?" Marta asked. He broke free from Spot and ran to her, squeezing her tightly. She easily hugged him back, and he felt at home, at peace, like everything was right and the sheer relief made him weep. She guided his head down, stroking his hair, just like she did the first day she met him. "Its all right," she cooed, "you're home now," and turned them so they could sit again on the couch.

When he was calm, he wiped his face and pulled away, afraid to look at Spot after bawling like a baby. "I'm sssssssorry I d-d-didn't wrrrrrite." She grinned broadly and Spot did too, coming up and crouching on the floor in front of them. He felt himself smiling even through the tears that were still falling realizing that this was the first time either of them heard him say more than a few stuttered words. "Oh, yeah. Yyyyyou like that?"

Spot looked at the amazed look on Marta's face and said, "Crazy, right?" with a bemused smile on his scarred face. "He's the damned slowest talking New Yorker alive."

"How?" She asked, her hand never leaving the crook of his elbow, like he might disappear if she let go.

"Practice," Eli sniffled. "Lots of p-p-practice." They looked at him like he walked on water. "I g-get ssssstuck. C-c-can't sssssssay the rrrrrrright word. And th-th-the…."

"Stutter," Marta and Spot said together. He nodded and sniffled again. Marta cleared her throat and pushed the hair back off of his brow, smiling as she took inventory of the boy she raised, all grown up. He realized how much like herself, like Kisser, she looked. The sun bleached her hair back to it's cinnamon color and the dry air made her curls wild and fuzzy. Her freckles were darker and her skin more pink.

"Do you want to meet the little ones?" Marta asked, standing up and holding her hand out to him. As soon as he was standing, she wrapped her arm around his elbow and held it tightly, soaking up four years worth of absent affection as best she could. "And then we'll have some supper." Eli nodded and she smiled and kissed his cheek. "It's so good to have you home," she whispered quickly in his ear before turning to her husband who had watched the whole scene from the doorway. He lounged there like he had all the time in the world and smiled like he knew something they didn't. "Fletcher, my friend, would you call in the troops?"

"Friend? Are we friends?" he asked with a goofy grin.

"I like to think I married my best friend," she answered with a charming smile.

"Yeah" Spot teased, standing up with a wicked look on his face, "but he likes to think he married a prize heifer!" but still yelped as she took off after him.

Eli looked at Fletcher, questioning with his face. Fletch snickered. "Now that is a funny story…"

"Winslow Fletcher, don't you dare tell him that story or I will knock your teeth in!" Marta shrieked from the other room where the sounds of some sort of scuffle rang out.

There was a clang and a clatter, and a higher pitched shriek. "Will you two get outta here before you destroy my kitchen?" Darcy yelled. Spot and Marta raced back out of the kitchen and out the front door into the grass like children.

"Welp, now that she's not here to stop me," Fletcher said waggling his sandy eyebrows with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes, "I can tell you. Spot was teaching my boys to shoot with a slingshot when we were staying at the boarding house that Marta was running in Denver when I took some stock to auction. In return, Will wanted to show her to rope." His lazy, happy smile grew wide. "I came back early and saw them and Marta was just….terrible." His head tipped back and he laughed again, loud and rolling. Eli couldn't even picture Marta swinging a rope around like Jack used to do. "I snuck up behind her and roped her, drug her ten feet or so, kicking and screaming the whole way, and then I stole a kiss when I picked her up off her duff."

"Shhhhhhhe p-p-punch you?" Eli asked, already knowing the answer.

A deep crimson blush crawled up the cowboy's bronzed neck, "Sure did! Best damn thing I ever managed to rope. A wild woman is just what this old place needed to bring it back to life." He looked at the burly boy at his side, who looked in awe and lost all at the same time. "You know you're welcome to stay for as long as you like. There are few problems that I've come across, that a man can't work through in his head, so long as his body keeps busy."

Eli's brow furrowed and he shook his head slightly. "I'm j-j-j-just passing through. There's a ssssschool like the one in Mmmmmmuh...mmmmmmmm'hattan in Colorado Sssssprings." The school where his life suddenly didn't seem so worthless. Before St Xavier's, he'd spent every day trying to not be a burden, angry and frustrated that no one listened him just because he didn't speak. There, they taught him signs, but it was when he was alone with JoAnna in the attic, nursing a broken arm from the rally during the Newsboy's strike, that he found a voice. For the first time, he was more than just "the mute kid from Brooklyn" or "the big guy with Spot." With her, he was just Eli, and he was hers.

Fletch clapped him on the back, "The way I understand it, you're family and this family takes care of each other." Eli looked up at him through his eyelashes and nodded his thanks. He could talk now, but he still didn't if he could convey what he wanted without it. "Why don't you go see if Darcy needs any help while I go gather up the kids….the little and big ones." They both grinned and Eli made his way towards the room he heard Darcy shrieking from.

"Hhhhhhheya D-d-darcy," he said from the doorway after watching the tiny but powerful blonde bustle around the kitchen for a few moments.

She turned with a brilliant smile and squealed. "Trout!" She put down the bowl she was stirring and ran to him, launching her small, but very round and pregnant body at him. He squeezed her gently. They were only around each other a few times, but their connection to Spot somehow made their friendship easy. She pulled away and smiled up at him, she was breathtaking now that she was happy, not the dusty, disused girl he first met in the streets. "Thank goodness, Spot's been prowling around here for an hour waiting for you to wake up!"

"He sssssscared the shit out of me, hhhhugging me. I thhhhhhhought I was going to d-d-die."

She handed him a stack of plates and grinned at him, as if him talking was the most normal thing in the world. He was grateful for the lack of attention. "It's one extreme to another with him. I'm not sure normal and Spot will ever be friends." Eli set the table, not missing Darcy's raised eyebrow at his ability to do so properly. He wasn't a wild runaway anymore. His time teaching ended up teaching him more than he ever could have known when he accepted the position from JoAnna's aunt in exchange for speech training.

Fletcher was outside with what sounded like a herd of cattle. Marta stepped up to the sink, grinning broadly. Her hazel eyes followed his gaze out and she nodded unconsciously. "So far as anyone knows, Spot is my little brother. We just decided it would look better for all of us if we were siblings. Darcy and Spot were already married before we stepped off the train in Denver," Eli looked at Spot incredulously.

"Don't give me that look. Yes, I was crazy. But, that is one crazy decision I stand by." He wrapped his arm back around Darcy and kissed the top of her head.

Fletch came up behind Marta and wrapped his arms around her waist, followed in by four kids. The older two were obviously Fletcher's, with their golden curls and deep brown eyes. "Will and Jesse," Marta announced, "this is me and Spot's friend, Eli, from New York." The two older boys, who were ten and seven, shook his hand politely.

Jesse's face screwed up with skepticism, "Your mama named you Trout?"

He smiled tiredly and sat down, he'd spoken more since arriving in Kiowa than he normally did in a week, "Mmmmmy mmmother called me Ehhh...ehhhhhhlllllllliot," he blushed, feeling all of their stares at his struggle. He didn't want their pity. "But I c-c-c-couldn't say it. Ssssssssspot called me T-t-tr-trout. I c-c-called mmmmyself Eli."

"You don't talk funny like Spot and Mama," the younger boy answered stretching a rare and beautiful grin onto Eli's face.

He looked up at Spot and Marta, gleefully happy. It was the first time anyone had ever said anything about him talking that didn't have to do with his poorly formed or complete lack of words. "I ah-al-alllways thhhhhhhought they t-t-talked funny too." The comment earned him a giggle from Marta and Darcy and a scowl from Spot. So, he thought, this is what Home feels like.


	4. Chapter 3

Long after supper was eaten and dishes were cleaned, once all of the kids were in bed, Spot, Marta and Eli sat on the farmhouse porch. "Out with it Trout," Marta ordered after a few moments of peaceful silence. "Something is not right with you and I've pussyfooted around it long enough." In the dim lamplight on the porch, she could still see him look up at her through his eyelashes at her as he sat sideways on the steps. "That doesn't work on me and you know it. Are you sick? Are you dying? What is going on?"

"Marta, shut up for two seconds and let the man talk," Spot said quietly.

"I'm…I'm…not sick. Not d-d-d-dying," he answered. "I nnnneeded my ffffffamily...and thats you." He was silent for another minute. He'd spent the whole train ride trying to figure out how he would answer this line of questioning. The truth was just too pathetic, but Marta would know if he made something up.

"Seemed like you really liked teaching them kids," Spot said carefully, watching his old friend with those eyes like mercury. Eli nodded and let out a deep sigh. Spot whistled, long and low. "That ain't good."

"Yup, thats the deep shit sigh," Marta agreed with a smile in her voice.

"That's the go stare at the island for hours sigh," Spot added and Trout winced. He had stopped at the bridge. Even though he'd been hundreds of times since she left, every time brought back the memory of the last time he was with JoAnna. The stop on the way to what ended up as a drinking binge at Moriarty's was no different.

Standing there, he could hear her voice. "Mother will be by later to collect me and my things. She's booked she and I passage on the SS City of New York and we leave in the morning. She wants to keep me busy until spring when she'll start forcing me to every loathsome ball in all of creation." She stared down at the water. "She tried to cheer me up, tell me I was going to see the world, but it's the same world on every ship and every continent. Same boring people, same conversation, same food, same dances. Over and over and over." She sighed and tucked herself into his side. "Maybe I should run away, be a newsgirl like Marta was."

"No," he answered stonily, gripping her hand tightly.

"Why not?" she whined, burying her face in the sling that held his broken arm, the broken arm that brought them together.

He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and held her close. He couldn't lie to her. She needed him to be real with her so he pulled her away and freed his hand from her grip. 'Because I couldn't stand for you to live that way.' he answered her in perfect sign language. He'd taken to the gestures easily, relieved to have others understand him for the first time. 'I didn't tell you about the boys that died because they got sick, or the ones who just disappeared in the night because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, or that I've had to steal, or eat out of the trash because I was so hungry, and that I get into fights all the time. We went on strike over a tenth of a cent, because that was the difference between eating or starving."

She clenched her jaw, drumming her fingers on the rail. "You've done it since you were seven, what makes you think that I wouldn't make it? Won't I ever prove that I'm more than 'Miss Park Avenue'?"

He sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. He had no starry-eyed illusions about how their world worked. His life would destroy the beautiful creature she was. 'You could make it, but I don't want you to.' Her brow furrowed and he caressed her cheek before going on. 'I don't want you to be hungry or cold or in jail. I want you safe, because I love you.'

She gasped, staring wide eyed at his hands for a moment and then lifted her eyes to his face. "I love you too, that's why I want to be with you, even if it means we're not safe."

He let out a little huff of sad laughter as he reached out to tip her chin up. 'Go with your mother. Write to me everyday and I'll save every penny I can, and we'll go after you get back. We'll take a train and go west somewhere. Somewhere with lots of sky.' She looked worriedly out at the water. 'I have two dollars to my name, Jo. Not even enough for a train ticket. We need tickets, food and money for somewhere to stay when we get somewhere else. I don't have that.'

She nodded reluctantly and he took her hands and wrapped them around his notepad. "You need that, Eli. Until you teach someone else sign thats all you have to talk to your friends. You can't give it away."

He waved that off and held his hands around hers, staring deep into her eyes. He patted it, pointed at her and then himself. "Thhhhhis uh-uh-us," he stammered.

"This is us?" He nodded, looking down and gently moving her hands and his words towards her chest.

'Our words. For when you think no one hears you. I always do.'

"I know you do," she said, hanging her head. "I don't want to go." He leaned in and pressed his lips to hers and felt her tears slide into the creases where their mouths fit together like puzzle pieces. His hand reached up to cup her face and his thumb wiped the tears away, their salt burning his tongue. She pulled away just enough to say, "I have to go. She'll be waiting for me by now." He shook his head and closed the distance between the two of them again. His kisses and her own tears left her weak at the knees.

"Mmm-mine," he hummed, tilting his forehead to press against hers. She nodded with a small sob. "My Jo."

"Yours," she whispered. "Always yours." She pressed her lips to his, parting them to let him in and they spent one last blissful moment kissing before she pulled away and wiped her eyes.

He looked down weaving his fingers with hers for a few moments before letting go to use his hand. 'Don't forget me and fall for some guy in tails and a top hat.'

She tucked her middle three fingers in, leaving her thumb and pinky out and touched her heart with her thumb, drawing the line to his with her pinky. "I won't be able to. I'll be feeling the pull on that the whole time I'm gone. It will hurt too bad to even notice anyone else is there."

He shuddered in the cool night air and looked up at Marta through his eyelashes with a sad, sheepish smile. "I'm sorry for w-w-w-worrying you," he mumbled. "You were so happy here, and I wanted that. I don't want... I can't find... I want…"

"You want JoAnna," Spot answered flatly . Eli had him shoved against the house by his shoulders in moments. They glared at each other and Eli found himself wishing for the old, volatile Spot. The one who would hit and keep on hitting. It would let him feel something besides jealousy and loneliness and sucking, devouring emptiness that Jo left in her wake. Spot and Jo were always at odds, somehow managing to draw out Spot's cruelty and a boldness that JoAnna didn't know she had. "She's the only girl I ever seen turn your head at all. But she's gone, Trout. She was always gonna be gone. Even if she stayed, she wouldn't have been around! You've got to let it go!"

Marta rested her hand gently on Eli's broad shoulder, "Let him down, Eli." Her voice was soft, comforting and quiet as she waited, never moving her hand. He turned his head to her, watching her calm, freckled face out of the corner of his bright blue eye. "You don't have to let go of her. Someone else will make you feel that way, maybe better." He dropped Spot roughly and shoved him away with a huff. Her arm slid down his bicep and snaked around his elbow, gently tugging him back to the steps where she sat down next to him. "You know I understand. You have to know that. You were there while I waited for Scat all those years, waiting for my first love to come back. But he wasn't coming back, and JoAnna isn't either." She felt him slump a few inches and smiled sadly. He felt loss so profoundly in that tender heart of his. "You have plenty more chances for that great love."

Spot sat down on the step in front of them. "Stick around here. See if we can't find you a nice farm girl," he agreed.

The opportunity arose to lighten the mood and take the focus off of himself and he ran with it. "Sssssssso, you mmmmmmmmmarried a g-g-g-g…..mmmmmmmmmman who r-r-r-roped you like a c-c-c-cow?" His bright blue eyes sparkled as Spot stifled a laugh.

Her hazel eyes flashed as they looked between him and the door before she erupted out of her seat, stamping her foot against the floorboards. "Fletcher!" she yelled.

The two newsboys chuckled as she stormed into the house to chastise her husband. They enjoyed the quiet, companionable silence, the clean, sweet, sootless breeze and the cold night air. "We ok, Trout?" Spot asked quietly, as they stared up at the stars that were so bright and plentiful away from the lights of the city.

They hadn't parted ways well. Not many friendships, even ones as lengthy and close as the one between Trout and Spot could have survived the horrors they faced in the tenement that the leader of The Dockside Boys set up to test Spot. Spot wasn't supposed to make it out at all, and the person who came out of the fire that night was not the same boy who led Brooklyn. Spot did things that Trout couldn't see past in that nightmare building. With the guise of sympathy, empathy and even humanity stripped away, Trout couldn't avoid the other cruel things his friend had done over the course of the years anymore. There was no good side of Spot to make up for the shortcomings. All of the times he'd been berated or held back for the sake of Spot's over-inflated ego came bubbling up. The worst of which was one of those times where the worst side of Spot brought out the best in JoAnna. Something about his cocky, rude nature made her brave. Her mother had caught wind of their sweet, young romance and brought her home for an emergency dinner party with a more " suitable young man. Worried about her, Trout had begged Spot to wait outside her Gramercy Park home in case she needed someone to walk home with, only thinking the Spot was scarier than what lurked in the shadows. He had glossed over a lot of the horrible things Spot had said over the years, but the conversation that JoAnna relayed to him in tears when she got back to the school went too far.

Spot leaned against the window frame, looking sour and displeased. It didn't even register that anything was off, because Spot's neutral was sour and displeased. Jo slipped into the room and it took him a moment to realize that she was wearing nothing but her drawers and corset. He jumped up from the armchair, yanked the blanket off of his bed and wrapped it around her shoulders, but she pushed it back off and walked towards Spot, like a woman in a trance. He actually looked a little frightened, and she smirked at him through her tears . "Get. Out," she whispered, opening the window. She grabbed him by the ear and he yelped as she shoved his head out the window, forcing his body to follow onto the fire escape.

"Hey!" he cried indignantly as she released him.

"Good night, Spot. Have a lovely walk back across the bridge." Her voice was cordial, but biting as she shut and locked the window and pulled the paper shade down to block his view.

Eli touched her. "Jo?" he asked aloud, before signing, 'You're scaring me.' She looked up at him, studying his worried face and reaching up to brush his wild hair aside, combing her fingers into the mess and caressing his scalp. He leaned into it and her brows furrowed, but she still pushed his rough palm downward until it rested on top of the bulge of her breast. He pulled his hand away and pushed her back gently. 'What are you doing?' he signed.

"Giving you what you want," she answered meekly, unable to make her eyes meet his.

'Says who?' Her mouth opened and closed unwittingly a few times as she tried to chose her words. Tears were in her eyes again and she brushed them away angrily. 'Tell me, go on,' he pressed. 'What did Spot do?'

She swallowed and pinched the muslin of his sling between her fingers, running them up and down. "He said that you were only waiting around for Marta to bail you out of here and for...this." She gestured vaguely at her swollen bosoms. "He said you think with your heart and not your head, that he thought I could see reason. He told me that it would be kinder of me to break your heart now instead of waiting for our different lives to force us apart." Anger surged up inside of him. 'Part of me thinks he's right. I'd rather leave knowing that what we had here was too good and too pure for that horrible world out there where he is." He gripped her tightly, feeling sick to his stomach. Her hand covered her breasts again and he had to force his eyes to stay up, even though they didn't want to. "But my heart," she whimpered, "my heart only wants you." Large, heavy tears fell down her beautiful cheeks. "I really am sure that fate tied it to yours. The thought of never seeing you again...it hurts."

She was so different from anyone he'd encountered in eight years on the streets or the seven before either. She was a cluster of hopes and dreams and fancies somehow trapped inside a human form. He began to chuckle and she looked up at him, hurt and betrayed, but he kissed her, every inch of her face, and soothed the hurt he caused before asking, 'Do you even know what you were offering me?'

She blushed and shook her head, sniffling and chuckling wetly. "Spot pointed at these...I figured that you could show me the rest." His laugh was warm and round and filled the quiet room as he pulled her in and kissed the top of her head and squeezed her tightly to him.

His face darkened. 'I don't like what he said. I don't want anything you don't want to give me.'

She put her hand over his. "I'm sorry I didn't trust you. I should have known. I said so many times that you and he aren't the same, but then I believed him when he said you were." She wouldn't have thought it was possible, but his brow furrowed even deeper. "He said such awful things, Eli, and I was already so worked up from my mother that I just let him bully me right into fighting with him some more!" She paused, smiling a bit, but trying to hide it. "But I did slap him!"

'Good.' He stared stonily at the window and she couldn't pull him back out of his head, so she just leaned in, resting her ear over his heart. Spot went to far.

Trout sighed and looked up at the sky one more time. Those nights in Brooklyn, and the ones in Manhattan, the stars were never so bright or so many. Instead of a few dim points of light, they were like the sun reflecting off of water on a windy, too many and too bright to focus on any one of them. Those days were gone though. JoAnna was gone, and it seemed like, in the aftermath of the tenement, Spot had really grown up into a man who was actually capable of friendship and feeling. Eli came to Kiowa to have a new life with the only family he'd ever acknowledged, and that meant he needed to turn over new leaves as well. This sky was big enough to make him feel small. He spat in his palm and held it out to Spot without removing his eyes from the sky. "Mmhmm. We're g-g-good."


	5. Chapter 5

Trout, as he always did, melded into the Fletcher clan as though he'd always been there. It was a trait that Spot envied, even if Trout could never see it in himself. Before he left New York, no one knew Trout as well as Spot. Eli Cooper, however, was practically a stranger. The sadness of a lifetime of being underestimated and misunderstood had always been there, but it wasn't just sadness. Trout was out of hope. If there was one part of Eli that Spot understood, that was it. He and the darkness were well acquainted. Four years after the worst of it, despair still visited him regularly. Thing got better when Darcy found out she was pregnant with Clarice. She gave him someone to be better for. When Darcy went into labor with their second child on Trout's birthday, Spot hoped it was a sign that better things and things to be better for were on the way for Trout too.

Darcy grabbed his hand and squeezed it tightly, leaning her forehead into his chest and swaying her hips as another pain gripped her. "Go," she ordered breathlessly as the pain passed. She was the first person he ever let boss him around that way, but now it made him smile instead of snarl.

"I'm staying right here where you need me," he murmured back pushed her silky, fine blonde hair out of her face. "I ain't leaving you."

She grinned, her face flushed and gleaming with sweat, "The fun is just getting started. You've got plenty of time to get back here for the fireworks. Go help Fletcher get through supper and make Trout eat my damn cake." Trout was barely able to talk the day before after he walked into the kitchen to ask what she was making. His blue eyes looked about ready to pop out of his head at the thought of them all celebrating him. He avoided her most of the day. "It's just a cake," she groused.

He chuckled and twisted her hair up, blowing on her neck to cool her down before another round of pain hit. "He don't like attention. Used to drive Marta crazy." She looked up at him with her watercolor green eyes, and somehow, sweaty and flushed, exhausted and wearing nothing but a damp nightgown, she was more beautiful than she'd ever been. She only stood four foot eleven, ten year old Will was already taller than her, but she had more piss and vinegar in her than someone twice her size. She wasn't sweet, but she cared fiercely and to see her put that care into his friend while she should have been worrying about the life she was about to bring in to the world reminded him of why he loved her.

A soft knock at the door interrupted them and Marta peaked in. Darcy sighed, and leaned into him. "Go help Fletcher, make Trout enjoy his birthday and get back here. This kid will keep that long." He stayed with her as she swayed and panted her way through another pain. As it eased up, she smiled up at him, her hair damp and her eyes shadowed and let him pull a strand of it off her cheek.

He rolled his eyes as he kissed her tenderly, "Yes, Ma'am." Marta winked at him as he left the room and stalked over to the big house where he found the boys setting the table and joking around. Clarice sang quietly from a perch atop Trout's shoulders as he poured hot cake batter onto a griddle and whistled along with, holding her ankle with his free hand. She had her arms wrapped around the top of his head. "What is going on in here?" he demanded, making them all jump.

Clarice leaned down and whispered in Trout's ear and he grinned, nodding as much as he could with her attached to him. "We're makin' pancakes!" she answered. "I'm helping."

"Yeah, I can see that," he answered. "Where's Fletcher?" He was asking Trout, but again, his daughter leaned down and whispered and he nodded while he flipped hot cakes to brown their other sides.

"He's changing Teddy," she answered, kicking her heels happily against her friend's broad chest.

"What is this?" Spot asked teasingly, swatting at Trout's arm with his knuckles. "Spend all that time learning to talk just to let a three year old be your mouthpiece?"

"Shhhhhhhhhe's g-good at it," he mumbled slowly. It was almost painful for Spot to wait for him to finish a sentence. "C-c-c-comes by it ah...ah...honestly." He quirked a black eyebrow at Spot with a subtle smirk twitching the corner of his mouth. Trout was right, of course. He would never have admitted it, but he was proud to serve as his silent friend' voice all those years, because it meant somebody needed him more than he needed them…and he desperately needed people. Seeing Trout and JoAnna together back then scared him to his core. It scared him into saying and doing horrible things, but for the best of reasons. The night that he walked JoAnna home was one of those times, and when Trout confronted him about it a few nights later at a party the Pulitzer threw for the newsies.

Trout signed something at him, using the gestures he learned at the school, the ones that they all knew there and all used. Jealousy, cold and slick, rose up in him. Piece by piece that big-eyed wisp was stealing his best friend. There would be others for her, but he NEEDED Trout! "Yeah, your fingerspelling ain't gonna get us too far without her, but I do appreciate you leaving her down there. She and I ain't exactly on the best terms since she threw a shoe at me." The words left a bitter taste in his mouth. He smirked and looked up at his old friend for commiseration, but Trout looked away. "Don't let her make you believe that you's too good for what has worked all these years."

He collapsed into the second chair and pulled out his notepad, but it was too dark to see, so he yanked the curtain open further with a huff. _**I don't want to just get by. Sign is faster. Can keep up.**_

"But JoAnna can't be with you while you sell and while you's with us. She's got her own shit to deal with."

You could learn. Others would if you did. It would be enough. Or I could stay at the school and not sell anymore. They offered me a place, free of charge. I could stay there and you wouldn't have to deal with me being too stupid and too loyal to be on my own.

Spot's silvery eyes flashed and he sat up from his reclined position, leaning over his knees and steepled his long slender fingers. "I thought maybe she could think with her head and leave her heart out of it." He glared at Trout, waiting for him to back down, but Trout stood his ground and refused to bend. "Whatever you's gonna do, you better decide quick. Marta's coming to get you in the morning." Trout glared, it didn't respond, and the longer he waited, the more pale and cold Spot felt. "You belong with me and Marta. We's family."

Trout looked at the floor, shuffling his boot against the fine carpet before putting pencil to paper. _**Go home, you look like you're about to lose your shit and I'm not walking you back to Brooklyn. I'm done babysitting you.**_

He shoved his chair out and stomped back down the stairs, but Spot yelled after him, "You's gonna have to explain all this to her too! If you do this, we's done. You hear me? If you ditch me, you can just stay gone!" He was terrified that Trout would do exactly that.

Now, Trout was back, and, thanks to Spot's filthy cowardice, JoAnna was gone. Trout didn't need him now. And he was different too. "Smartass," he hissed in reply to Trout's teasing.

"He learned from the best, Daddy," Clarice retorted charmingly, with a sweet but knowing smirk on her little face that looked so much like his. Spot's mouth hung open in shock, while Trout laughed loudly.

"What in the hell are you teaching my kid?" he asked incredulously, while Trout tried to control himself enough to get the hot cakes onto a plate. He shook his head as he laughed so hard that tears streamed down his face. Fletcher sauntered in with Teddy on his hip as Spot pulled Clarice down from her high perch to sit her at the table.

Once everyone finished their supper, Spot plopped Clarice in Trout's lap before pulling the cake out of the pantry. Trout was ready to protest, but Spot pushed him back down, "She made ya a cake, you's gonna sit and eat it and pretend you enjoy it for her sake. You got me?" Trout blew air out through his lips in frustration and nodded, giving Clarice a bounce. Fletcher started singing "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow," loudly and off key and the boys joined him, while Clarice clapped her hands giddily. Trout blushed and wouldn't look up, suffering through the attention.

While Fletcher and Will did the dishes, Trout brought out an old violin he brought in this things from New York and began to play. The three younger kids danced and giggled until they were too exhausted to go on and their fathers tucked them into bed. Trout was lovingly tucking his instrument back into it's case when Spot returned. Spot wondered what was going on in that head of his. Was it all the changes in him or all the changes in Trout that made him harder to read now? "Night," Trout mumbled.

"Night, Trout," he answered. "And happy birthday, Smartass." Trout chuckled and put his coat on for the walk to his little house, clapping Spot on the shoulder and tucking the violin case under his arm as he slipped out the door into the night.

A few hours later, Marta handed the baby to him, a squalling bundle of blankets, and he walked out of the bedroom with his newborn son to leave the women to the final bits of birth. In the soft glow of the lamplight, he cradled the babe and cleaned him off a bit more, shushing and soothing him. He was perfect. Ten fingers and ten toes and a little rosebud mouth that was stretched wide in protest of the loss of his warm mother. He cried and his little bottom lip trembled with cold as his father checked him over. The tiny boy's little red hand wrapped around his index finger and he gasped at the stirring of the feelings in his chest. "Ya know," he said in a soft, gentle voice, wrapping the swaddle tighter around the small, writhing body in his hands, "it's ya birthday. You was born just in time to share it with the best friend I ever had. l'ma name you aftah him." He falteringly ran the back of his finger along the downy, nearly white hair on the baby's head. "Cooper Conlon. That's a good solid name right there." He paused and huffed out a little laugh, "He'll look out for ya, make sure nothin bad happens to you. He always did it for me."

He paced back and forth across the main room of he and Darcy's tiny cabin, pouring his heart out. "When I was supposed to look out for him, I fucked it up every damn time. When I was supposed to look out for your mama all I did was turn my back on her and think the worst of her. When I was supposed to take care of Marta, she ended up saving me." His finger traced the scar that ran down his face, "I want to be a man you can be proud of, Cooper." Cooper gave a little squeak of a yawn and pulled his fist into the blanket, his eyes closing. Spot pulled him upright against his chest and sighed in contentment as the baby snuggled into his warmth and fell asleep. "Marta tried to help me, but I was too stupid and stubborn to listen. I always thought I knew better, didn't trust no one. Not even him. He trusted me. He always thought the best of me, no matter how many times I disappointed him, no matter how often I railroaded him. I needed him, but I didn't trust him enough to need me back. And you know how I repaid him? By being a selfish prat. That's how." He sucked in and let out a heavy sigh. "He don't even know it. I ain't never told no one. I'm trusting you to keep my secret, Coop. Be a man of your word. Be a better man than ya dad is, because ya Dad is a bad man. There ain't no saving me from all the bad I already done or the stupid shit I'll probably still do because I'm beyond fixing. I got more good days than bad, now, but I ain't never gonna be half the man that he is. So you watch him and listen to him, because Trout is exactly the kind of man you should want to grow up to be." His voice choked and broke. The tears were small, the kind that well and get stuck in eyelashes, never gaining enough momentum to fall any further, and for that he was grateful.

That notepad had been with him, haunting him, every day since JoAnna handed it to him on the fire escape that night. He held it, sitting on the edge of his bunk in the dark and desperately wanted to know what was so important that she would walk to Brooklyn alone in the dark. He flipped the pages absently against the tip of his thumb, like cards in a deck, trying to tell himself that he had no right to read it until something slipped out and fell to the floor. A train ticket. His heart dropped to his feet. He wasn't proud of what he did. He acted out of fear and desperation, swiftly tucking the ticket back in the pages of the notepad and the notepad into his inner coat pocket. He was sure that JoAnna would come to her senses and go home when Trout didn't show. He was sure she couldn't possibly have the guts to go it alone. So, when the Wittens showed up the next morning, he watched in stunned silence as JoAnna's aunt, Cici who ran the school and Mrs Witten engaged in a shouting match with Marta. "You may not barge into my house and scream at my boy!" Marta was yelling. "He was here, asleep all night!"

"He knows where she is!" Mrs Witten roared. "Get him out here! I will make him tell me!" Trout crept out of Marta's room, where he'd been hiding since he and JoAnna said goodbye, but kept to the darkness of the hall, listening to the women rage.

"He doesn't know anything because he was here!" Marta bellowed. Spot stood on the stairs, leaning casually against the banister, but feeling like slime on the inside. Mrs. Witten was red in the face, her dark hair falling out of what was once a neat chingon.

Cici caught sight of Trout, watching them from the shadow and smiled sadly. She moved her hands keeping her gestures small and discrete, but Trout shook his head and returned different gestures. Spot was watching the two of them now, in utter fascination.

Cici nodded and touched her sister-in-law's elbow. "She's not here Camille."

Trout grunted, gaining the younger woman's attention and he signed again.

Cici sighed. "She left a note that made us think you were with her." Cici pulled it out of her handbag.

"Where is she?" Mrs Witten growled, as the hand holding the letter dropped to Trout's side. He gasped loudly, trying to force air into lungs that didn't want to it.

"He doesn't know, Camille, look at him. He's just as distraught as we are," Cici argued.

"Trout, you need to breathe," Marta said quietly, right next to his ear. "You're turning red and if you pass out you'll hurt your arm. Please take a breath, Trout." He reached for her hand, and tried to control himself as he dropped to the ground.

Spot slid to the ground next to him. This was all his fault and there was no hope of fixing it, but he could try to soften the blow. He sunk to sitting and slid his hand across the floor until the tips of his fingers touched the tips of Trout's and stared hard into his friend's bright eyes. "Easy there. Ain't nothing we can't handle," he said quietly. "You remember this?" Trout nodded shakily, but still couldn't force himself to breathe right. "You remember watching me lose my shit? I had no clue what the hell I was doing or even where I was. Marta had to lock me up sos I wouldn't hurt no one. Everyone else, all those big guys, wouldn't go near, like it was a rabid honey badger in there and not a runty little kid. But you walks right up and stick ya fingers under the door."

Trout focused on the memory of the first time Trout had acted as his keeper, the of many times, while Spot picked up the note. Her handwriting was as silly and frivolous as she was, adorned with extra loops and curlicues that made it hard to read.

 _ **Dearest Mother,**_

 _ **By the time you read this, I will be long gone. I'm going on my own adventure and taking someone who cared more to get to know me in a few short months than you have in fifteen years. A sea voyage and trip across Europe with you is a kind of torture that I will never suffer through. Earlier tonight you told me that a bird and a fish could fall in love but would have no where to make a nest. I'm a nightingale falling in love with a trout and we'll make our nest where we please.**_

 _ **JoAnna**_

Trout was starting to calm down, starting to breathe when Mrs. Witten stepped closer and looked down at him like he was nothing more than vermin, "If I find out that you're hiding her somewhere, I'll have you locked up for good!"

A strange, strangled noise of protest came out of him and he tried to stand up to plead with her, but Spot pulled him back down and grabbed hold of his chin so that their eyes were locked again, his narrow fingers digging into Trout's jawbone. "Don't listen to that mess. We's talking. You ain't going no where. You's staying here with me and Marta. It's you and me, Pal. No matter what else comes along, there's always you and me. Show me what you did to calm me down."

'Jo,' he signed frantically, pulling his face out of his friend's grasp.

"Jo ain't gonna come back just because you passed out like a girl with her laces done up too tight. Sing me to sleep, Trout." Spot gave him a gentle slap on the cheek. The impact shocked him enough to pull in a deep breath. He clumsily pursed his lips and tried to blow, but couldn't do it.

"I think you should leave," Marta said in a low, dangerous voice to the Wittens, holding the door open pointedly.

The memory choked him. It hit him like a punch to the gut. The way he'd moved forward from the monster he was after the tenement was to forgive himself, to work hard and to make sure that he was good in his new life. But with Trout's big, blue kicked puppy eyes looking at him all the time, that seemed impossible. The notebook hid, pressed up against the back of his bedside table drawer now, where he couldn't accidentally touch it.

Marta's hand wrapped around his arm, and he smiled wetly. "How's my girl?"

"Go see for yourself while I check out the little man here." Marta answered, her brow furrowing at his distress.

"Cooper," he supplied, looking into her eyes as her hands wrapped around the bundle at his chest. "Cooper Martin Conlon." He smiled. "He ain't gonna be nothing like me. Not if I have anything to say about it."

The lamplight caught the glimmer of tears in her hazel eyes. "That's a good strong name if ever I heard one," she whispered, kissing the baby's forehead and breathing in his sweet smell.

"Should be," he grunted, "being named after three of the best newsies in Brooklyn would make anyone strong."

She moved the baby to cradle him close and put her free hand on his elbow. "Having a good father will help too." His brows pinched at that. He wasn't sure it was in him to be that, but he didn't push her hand away.

"He might not have that, but at least he's got a good Ma and two uncles and an aunt that can make up for it. He's got family, and that's what matters most." He pulled away without looking up and closed the door behind him.


	6. Chapter 6

He loved to toy with her. She knew it was true, yet she fell into his traps every time. She should have known something was amiss when he brought home a new dress and told her all about the town dance that was coming up. She should have suspected something, known that it was just a piece of bait to keep her interested. But, as usual, instead of telling her to be cautious, her memory reminded her of how much she loved dances. She hated the stuck-up cotillions and coming out parties her mother forced her to go to...but a dance, with loud music and wild stomping and laughter. Oh, she hadn't been to one of those since...Eli. She could see the marquis' electric bulbs as they flashed and let herself sink backwards to that party there boys of every age milled about. Inside, it was hot, loud and smoky. Eli found them a table up front, took her coat from her and hurried her on to the dance floor. They galloped and reeled, laughed their way through the grizzly bear, did the Hokey Pokey. They drank sarsaparilla and watched Mush, Blink and Racetrack jig until she fell, exhausted and sweating, into her chair. Her hair was falling down out of it's pins in whisps, and her bow hung askew. She'd never had so much fun before. The memory alone left her breathless, cruelly vivid as it was.

The night of the social came and Gordon threw himself down on their bed, covering it in dust and bits of hay and straw. She waited for her compliments eagerly. Her dress was a rich plum, and while it was simple by her old standards, it was the nicest thing she'd owned in six years. Her hair was twisted up on her head as artfully as she could manage on her own. She wanted to look as beautiful as she used to for him to thank him for taking her out. She stood next to the bed, waiting silently, trying not to think thoughts about how annoyed she was by the debris he was leaving on their bed. His arm was thrown over his eyes rather melodramatically, but he pulled it down when she cleared her throat nervously. "I'm too tired," he whined. "Lets stay home. We don't need to see all those people."

Inside her head a battle raged. Should she express her disappointment, tell him how much she was looking forward to this? Or was she being selfish. Shouldn't she want to take care of her husband? Shouldn't that be her priority? She sighed and untied her apron. "All right, Gordon," she whispered. "I'll try to put something together for your supper. Just let me change out of this dress so I don't ruin it." Her hands shook as she began to undo the buttons down her bodice. He sighed heavily and rolled his eyes as he pushed the little jet buttons that she just undid back through their button holes. "Since you fixed yourself up and you smell so nice, I guess we can go for a little while." He made it sound like a chore and she almost continued changing. She felt so selfish being excited when she knew he wasn't. "Go on, get your coat on." She smiled adoringly at him and rushed around, gathering her coat and pinching her cheeks to pink them up.

The night was still biting cold, but the cellar of the Kiowa town hall was cozy and warm from hall of the people gathered inside. A small band of men played music on a platform on one wall and the opposite wall was lined with tables full of pot luck dishes prepared by the local ladies guild. Couples whirled around the floor to the music and JoAnna longed to join them, but Gordon looked less than pleased to be there. He was getting glowering looks from the girls that he frequently visited for being there with a girl they'd never seen before and all of the men he knew where asking questions about where he'd been hiding away his pretty little wife. He didn't like all the attention she was getting either. She was blissfully happy, surrounded by people and music, dancing and gaiety, it had been so long since she felt this kind of life swelling around her, and she positively glowed with happiness. Men were asking her to dance and women's were coming to talk to her. His scowl dug deeper and and deeper as her smile got wider and wider. She kept looking sidelong at her husband, the only man who hadn't asked her to dance. "Gordon, will you dance with me?" she asked timidly. "We've never gone dancing before."

He huffed and rolled his eyes. "Aren't you ever happy?" She shrank back, pressing her back to the wall and bowed her head. He was right. Bringing her out was enough. Someone offered her a chair and she sat with an uneasy smile and watched the musicians play. Especially the man with the violin. His hair was black and curly, and he was tall and broad. He was handsome in a way that made her insides feel tight and quivering. A way that Gordon had never once made her feel. She could watch him play all night.

A shadow fell over her, distracting her from her musings, "Flaherty, mind if I take your girl for a spin?" he asked. He was taller than her, taller than Gordon, not that it was much of a feat, but he was still only average. He had a long jagged scar running from the middle of his forehead, through his sandy blonde eyebrow and down his cheek. His thick, ash blonde hair was slicked back with pomade and his eyes were a strange silvery blue. He seemed almost familiar, but maybe it was just his thick Brooklyn drawl.

"Do what you want," Gordon muttered and a long, slender hand was offered to her. She looked at Gordon, questioning, but he just waived his hand at the dance floor. She took the hand and shivered at the icy cold that it contained.

"Sahry, I got cold hands, always have," he said as they began to dance.

She shivered again as the cold from his fingers spread through her clothing as he put his hand to her waist and began to lead her around the dance floor. "Is that Brooklyn I hear?" she asked quietly.

He chuckled quietly. "That it is. Surprised you can still tell the difference, being from Park Avenue and all."

She looked up and studied him closely. "How do you know where I'm from?"

"I guess I oughta know, since I walked you home once upon a time. As I recall, you t'rew a shoe at my head and slapped my face that night. Then you pushed me out a window onto a fire escape in nothing but ya draw's and corset. Hard to forget a girl like that."

She froze, but he kept dancing, towing her along after him. "Spot?" She looked him up and down. "You look..."

"Yeah, yeah, so I've been told. Apparently fresh air and hard work suits me better than soot, starvation and fighting my way through. Saw you sitting there all by ya lonesome and remembered you liked to dance."

"Gordon isn't much for dancing," she answered. "He isn't much for parties either. He didn't want to come tonight; he came to make me happy."

"Then why is it that you don't look happy?" he asked, cocking his head to the side like a curious child. "Because I seen you happy, and this face is not happy. When you was happy, you had this stupid, kinda loopy look about you." She chuckled, knowing full well that he felt that way about her.

"I can't believe you're here."

"Marta and me left New York in fall 1901, stayed in Denver a year or so, and then Marta met Fletcher and we moved out here."

She swallowed thickly. "You've been next door at Fletcher's this whole time?" she squeaked.

He ducked his head. When he spoke up again, his voice was quiet and contrite. "We didn't know Gordon had a wife, from the gabbin' I been hearing in this room tonight, no one did. You hiding?" She shook her head, but then paused and shrugged. She was hiding from a reputation that Gordon assured her had followed her from Wichita. He watched her reaction carefully before going on. "I never thought you would leave. I thought you'd get on the boat with your mother when he didn't show." This time he let her stop and stared at her imploringly while she tried to understand the immense meaning of what he just said. Her knees felt weak. Eli never got her note or his train ticket. He never knew that she wanted him with her. He didn't reject her; in fact, he'd lived all this time thinking she'd run from him. Spot seemed to see what she was thinking and nodded. "He didn't know, he still don't." His silvery eyes flicked up the the platform where the musicians were and suddenly she understood why she found that violinist so attractive. She stared up at him, his black hair neatly tamed, his blue eyes shining as he played. She never got to see him play anything but his harmonica, because he still had a cast on his arm when she left. "He ain't seen you yet, he ain't seeing nothing but the music while he's up there." He raked a hand through his hair nervously. "I thought I was looking out for him."

"You were only looking out for yourself!"

"I done what I done and I gotta live with it. Do you want him to live with it too? If you tell him, he'll leave. He'll shut down like he did when you left and we might never see him again."

"What do you mean shut down?"

He sighed and pulled her to a back corner of the room, out of the view of both Gordon and Eli. "When you disappeared, he did too. No talking, no hand signs, no writing. He was...empty and stayed that way for a long time. I'm begging you, Jo. Don't do it. Please." She stared at him for a moment, her face blank but her brain in turmoil.

She sneered at him. "You don't care how he feels! You just care about yourself and what you will lose."

He gripped her shoulders tightly and looked like he wanted to shake her, grasping for every bit of control he had. "I was a scared, stupid shit back then, ain't no use denying it, but I only ever did what I did because I cared about him. He was the only family I had. I chased you away because I cared, I didn't let him follow you because I cared. I know I didn't do it right, but…."

"If you say your heart was in the right place I might vomit on your shoes," she snapped, the fog of confusion further taking over her mind. "You should really avoid trying to be selfless, since you have no clue how to think of anyone but yourself." Spot Conlon selfless, that in and of itself was just ridiculous. This whole conversation was ridiculous. The music stopped and Spot cursed under his breath as his eyes went to the platform.

She stared at the man on the stage who was staring back at her with wide eyes, a shade of cerulean that she'd never seen on a person before and not on another soul since him either. Panic took hold of her and she needed to leave. Eli couldn't see her. He couldn't see the sad creature she'd become. She frantically looked for Gordon, pulling her eyes away from the musician's. "I want to go home. I shouldn't be out. I can't handle this." She tried to push through the people to get back to Gordon, but it was like they were trying to be in her way. "Gordon!" she whimpered. The fiddle started singing alone, without the other band members, playing "She is the Belle of New York." Her chest heaved in a sob and she crumpled on the ground at the sound. He was playing just for her as she felt herself swirling out of control.

She could still smell the dim, mildewed hallway of the jail where she and her aunt found him. The cell he was in was small and dark, lit only by a slit of a window at the top of the wall. The smell alone made JoAnna want to run, but the boy curled up in the corner made her quake in her high buttoned boots. His back was against the far wall of the cell, and though his bruised face was towards them and his blue eyes were open it was obvious to the two women and the warden that he wasn't seeing them. He clutched one of his arms to his chest protectively and JoAnna's stomach turned as she realized why. His skin was black, blue, purple and green with bruising and his poor fingers were swollen up like sausages. His forearm was bent at angle that it shouldn't be.

Her feet moved toward him and she stared down at the almond toes of her boots in wonder. This was not smart. She knew it wasn't. Just because wild animal was sleeping in a cage didn't mean it was any less lethal, but still she moved forward. His black hair was far too long and needed a cut. His knuckles, so swollen that they were hardly recognizable, were scabbed over and bruised. Even when her boots were right in front of him, he didn't stir, didn't bat one of his long, black eyelashes at her. She wondered where he went to take himself away from this horrible reality and what he was seeing. She understood escape, that's what she did with her books and her slides. Suddenly she was right next to him, humming to calm herself and to drown out the screaming of her conscience to back up and wait by the door. The rolling happy, waltz of a tune comforted her and she sunk to her knees next to him, watching him closely. Then she sat, and before she knew it she was stretched out beside him on her stomach, staring into his listless blue eyes with her cheek resting on her hand. His eyes were the most beautiful cerulean blue, a color she'd only seen in artwork until that moment. Her dark hair spilled around her and she heard her voice tentatively begin to sing the lyrics rather than just humming. "Oh, she is the belle of New York, the subject of all the town talk." His lips were split and peeling and she wished she had some salve to put on them for him. "She makes the whole Bowery fragrant and flowery when she goes out for a walk." She just wanted to make him better.

As she kept singing, she watched his eyes slowly begin to focus on her until she knew with certainty that he was looking straight into her. "Hello," she said softly and smiled timidly. He stared at her in a bewildered way, those brilliant eyes searching for something within the depths of her brown ones. Her heart fluttered and her stomach erupted with thousands of butterfly wings. She'd never felt anything like it.

She was pulled up gently from the floor of the social hall, a cold hand at her elbow and on her waist. "Come on, Jo," Spot said quietly. "I'll take ya to Gordon." He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and began to guide her back to where he asked her to dance. Gordon caught sight of her in his embrace and yanked her into him, where she cried. The music still played and she could still feel Eli staring into her back.

"Are you making a scene?" Gordon hissed in her ear, looking like he was comforting her to anyone watching.

"I know him," she whispered, looking back at the platform, at Eli. "That's Eli. I know him from New York."

Gordon followed her gaze and his jaw dropped. "That's Eli? The kid with the stutter is your precious Eli that I will never love you as much as? That I will never live up to? The kid who can't say his own name is your newsboy crush?" He started laughing and some of the old hardness and scowl came back to Spot's face. "How did he sell papers? 'Eh-eh-eh-eh-extry! Ext-t-t-t-try R-r-r-r…."'

She whirled around and slapped him before he could finish his horrible impersonation and then ran out of the room. She could hear his feet pounding after her as she ran towards the wagon and he finally caught her only a few blocks away.

He grabbed her arm and used her momentum to throw her to the street. "What is the matter with you?" he bellowed. "You want them all to know that I'm stuck with a crazy person like you? This is why you never got to come before, because you make a scene and fall apart about nothing! You're going to get us both run out of town acting like that, all over some crush that ditched you a lifetime ago! You really are a piece of work." He grabbed her shirt and yanked her to her feet, laying into her with the back of his other hand the moment she was steady. The sound and the feeling of falling seemed so much worse than the actual pain in her face at first. And then the hot ache took over and her skin felt like it would split open. "You just conned me into marrying you and taking you away so that you would have a meal ticket."

"No, please don't say that, Gordon!"

"You've got a funny way of showing your affection, snuggling up with Conlon and making eyes at his stuttering, stupid friend."

"He's not stupid," she whimpered. The back of that hand came whipping down again but this time, the pain hit her first. She held her face and let her knees buckle.

Other footsteps were approaching and she looked warily towards them. "Didn't ya mothah teach ya not ta hit girls, Flaherty?" Spot's voice called out, his snappy Brooklyn accent making her feel strangely safe. "I ain't even got a mothah and I know that."

"Butt out, Conlon," Gordon growled. "How I deal with my wife is my business."

"She might be married to you, but we go a long way back. You ain't hitting a friend of ours." She nearly laughed, Spot Conlon was attempting to rescue her.

"Jo…" Eli's voice called softly and she looked up. He crouched on the street, keeping his distance like she was a feral animal. It couldn't be anyone else. Those eyes, she'd know them anywhere. His face was more cut and angular than it was the last time she really saw him, the jump to manhood treated him well. His hair was cut and kept neat instead of the wild mop he always insisted on before. She stared at him, drinking in every detail. 'You ok?' he signed.

She wanted to scream at him about leaving her. She'd waited so long wondering why he didn't come, but she looked back up at Spot and he pleaded with her silently. She couldn't talk to him and not accuse him. "I'm not yours to take care of, Eli." Her voice was cold, colder than she intended, but she couldn't keep the bitterness that she knew he didn't deserve out of it. "My husband and my life are my business. Please, keep your distance."

He sat back on his heels, trying to mask the hurt that she caused him. "T-tell me you're ok," he pressed. She wanted to cry hearing him speak a full sentence. She closed her eyes and tried to keep her lip from trembling, but the more she tried to keep it stiff, the more it trembled. "Tell mmme you want to s'ay."

Spot was glaring at Gordon, practically seething. "He had a right, my ass. Tell the truth, JoAnna. I know what happened," he said in a low, calm voice despite being so angry. "I was there. Tell me why ya hit him. Spit it out or I will." Eli stood up and stepped to Spot's side, tipping his chin up.

"He was tryin' on ya stuttah for size," Spot ground out. "I think maybe I should give him one of his own." His lithe arms, roped with hard earned muscle raised, ready for a fight, but Eli shoved them down.

His hands went into his pockets, like they had so many times when they were kids. "I…I lll-lllllooked for you. I nnnnnnnever g-gave up on you." He looked up at her through those enviable eyelashes of his and her throat got tight. "If you nnnnnnnneed an-an-anything, I'm a-at Fffffffletcher's."

She smiled even though it made her feel like her heart was exploding all over again. She had to force her hands to stay down, to keep her from reaching out to touch him. "Please stay away," she whispered. "You can't save me; the girl you knew...she's not here." She turned and put her arm on Gordon's elbow, pulling him back to their wagon.

Her next few weeks were hell while Gordon taunted her with Eli's existence and proximity to her. He was relentless. There were days when he had her convinced that Eli never wanted her, that he saw her for what she was and that's why he didn't meet her. Then his face would flash in her mind, his grown man face, furrowed with concern, telling her that if she needed him, she knew where he was. Even though he thought she left him, he wanted to help her. He loved her, and the hope that gave her carried her through.


	7. Chapter 7

Always a light sleeper, Marta woke the moment the kitchen door closed. She listened carefully as someone built up the fire, pumped water and ground coffee and she laid back against the pillow and sighed. Just one of the boys. They'd taken turns being up early and restless nearly every day of the two weeks since the town social. Spot was gruff and twitchy, jumping when whatever was happening in his head was interrupted and Trout was sullen and silent. JoAnna's coldness rocked him, and he was hurt by her pushing him away but he didn't say a thing about it. He answered when he was spoken to in speech or sign, depending on his mood, but didn't offer up conversation. Not unless it was with Clarice. He couldn't help but give her the attention she demanded from him. Even if he had half a mind to keep quiet around her, she'd clamor up into his lap, placing her backside on his knees and tuck one of her feet on either side of his hips and look at him inquisitively until he smiled at her and signed, 'What's up, Buttercup?' She'd giggle and carry on conversations in clumsy baby sign, inserting words where she didn't know the right sign. She was an eager student and picked up his language without any real instruction and everyone could see how much he liked it, missing the ease of conversation when he didn't have to think and work for every word. When he drifted off, lost in thought, she'd lay her tiny blonde head against his heart and just wait for him to come back. Somehow, a three year old who had no patience when it came to her supper or her boots being tied or her hair being brushed had all of the patience in the world for him.

She let him, whichever him it was, be for awhile but when the feathery gray light of dawn started to creep in, she got up and dressed before sinking back down on Fletcher's side of the bed to nuzzle her face into the warm, tanned neck of her cowboy. "Morning," he sighed, kissing the top of her head and wrapping an arm around her waist, anchoring her hip to his. "Who is is this time?"

"Has to be Trout," she answered, tipping her head to the side and listening intently. "No cussing or dropping things. Spot's so clumsy when he gets worked up but Eli just tries to blend into the woodwork." She looked up at him and pressed her lips to his. He smiled into it, pulling her down so that her body was flush on top of his and pressed tightly into him, just the way she needed it.

"You know we should check on her. It ain't natural to not know a man has a wife, especially when he's worked for you for nearly three years," he drawled, pressing his cheek to hers.

"I didn't think you'd want me to after what the boys said about him," she answered quietly, her heart pounding in her chest with anticipation.

He held her up away from him so he could look at her, her hair falling like a curtain around them both, and grinned. "Please, like my wild woman could ever be bested by a slimey little turd like Gordon Flaherty." He laughed, his voice still husky and rough with sleep. "It takes more than a cowardly weasel like him to take down a Fletcher, and you, my love, are a Fletcher through and through." He slowly lowered her mouth back down to his, her curls pooling all around their connected faces and groaned as she pulled his lower lip into her mouth.

"You really are the love of my life, you know that right?" She had no expectation of him answering beyond smiling that wide, lazy smile of his. He'd already lost who he thought was the love of his life, and felt amazingly blessed to have found that kind of connection twice. Comparing his late wife to Marta felt like a betrayal to both of them to him and she respected that.

"You head on downstairs. I'll get the troops up," he said before kissing her deeply.

"That," she said, once his mouth left hers to travel down her jaw and to her neck, "is not really motivating me to leave." She sighed and moaned as he sucked and nibbled, his mouth making her wish she'd stayed in bed a bit longer. He chuckled naughtily and released her, but smacked her backside once she stood up. She squeaked in shock and stuck her tongue out at him before sauntering out and down the narrow staircase to the main floor.

Sure enough, Trout sat, stretched across two chairs at the kitchen table when she came in. He looked up at her wearily, and let an exasperated huff of air out as a piece of paper crumpled into a ball between his large hands. The door to the firebox on the cast iron stove was open from him tending to the fire and he tossed the paper ball into it before getting up to rinse his cup. "Mmmmmorning," he rumbled sourly, trying to convince her that nothing was wrong with a half assed attempt at a smile. "C-c-cah...c-c-c-c..." he growled and tugged at his hair in frustration. The longer he went without sleep, the harder it got for him to get the words out. She smiled patiently, waiting for him to keep trying. "C-c-cah-coffee's rrrrrrrready." Before she could start a conversation and make him talk more, he left to go get to work alone in the barn. She stared after him for a moment, wishing she knew what to say to help him before leaning down to close the door of the oven and saw the ball of paper sitting on the floor by the claw foot. She watched him out the window for a moment, knowing she should put it where he meant it to go, before smoothing in out and scanning over his neat handwriting quickly. "Oh," she whimpered as she read it.

 _JoAnna,_

 _I've spent the past six years knowing that you left me, knowing that you didn't want me, but also knowing that I had to find you so that I knew you were safe. Not knowing you whether you were all right or not broke my heart far more than knowing our time was over. I never blamed you. I knew from the start that regardless of how complete you made me feel, that I would never be good enough for you._

 _If you are happy, then my wasted heart will continue to love you from afar like it's done since the moment you left my sight. I'll always be here, just follow the tug of that string between our hearts and it will bring you home to me._

 _It was you that led me here. I know now that someday you will follow that pull just like I did. I'll be waiting for you. You are the reason my heart beats, the reason I walk this earth, and I will wait until Doomsday if that's what it takes._

 _Yours Always,_

 _Eli_

She knew the moment she met Jo that she was something special. Jo saw something in Trout that almost no one else did. She showed up at the Poplar Street Lodging House, wide eyed and reeling of perfumed soap, looking like the boys might grow fangs and eat her, but managed to get a message from Trout to Marta. Marta ran her fingers over the ratty cardboard cover and a warm smile spread over her freckled face. No one knew what happened to Trout after the rally. All the boys who were arrested were bailed out by the reporter from the Sun, but Trout wasn't with them.

Jo smiled, the kind of smile that got Marta's attention, because Jo didn't know she was glowing with it. She didn't know that her brown eyes seemed warmer, her cheeks more rosy and that everything about her lifted and lit up when he was mentioned. "He wanted you to come see him tomorrow, if you're free. He's still pretty weak."

Her smile softened as her long fingers ran over the paper again as if it connected her to the boy who's voice was scribbled all over the pages, as if her fingers were brushing his arm instead of the care worn cardboard. She opened to the page addressed to her.

 _Marta,_

 _I'm safe at St Xavier's School in Manhattan. Nurse here won't let me out of bed either. Arm's broken, not my whole body! They say I have to stay until you come speak for me. I won't break your heart anymore. Don't leave me here._

 _Trout_

 _And Marta, don't do that thing you like to do to the girls the other boys bring home to JoAnna. Please. Don't make her cry._

The kitchen door opened again and Darcy came in with Cooper in her arms and Clarice at her skirt, but looking pinched and tired. Marta quickly folded the note and tucked it into the pocket of her apron before plastering a hasty smile on her face. "Everything all right?"

Darcy smiled softly. As much as Trout's behavior worried Marta, Spot concerned Darcy. "Between Cooper's colic and Spot's nightmares, it's a wonder I get any sleep at all."

"Old ghosts are hitting everybody hard," she murmured, shivering in the chill of the morning.

She placed two of the blue and white speckled cups on the table and filled them with coffee. "I can't believe she's been next door all this time and no one knew."

Darcy's eyes looked at the far wall of the kitchen, narrowing in anger. "It's a trick they like to use. They make you so dependent on them that even though you're free to go out, you don't want to. They make you think the worst of everyone around you and make you certain that everyone knows your deepest darkest secrets. The beatings are bad, but what men like that will do to a woman's mind is the real torture."

Marta hated to think about the Dockside boys and her whole tangled past with them. Darcy drank her coffee like her life depended on it and closed her eyes. Out the window, Eli came out of the barn with Clarice wrapped around his back and shoulders like a knapsack. Darcy smiled sadly as he reached up and patted the tiny hands that were clasped at the base of his throat. She looked at Marta, seeing the golden glow of mischief in her sister's eyes. "You're planning something and I want in."

Marta sucked on one of her cheeks and felt the note in her pocket. "If there is a sliver of a chance of getting her out of something that is destroying her while making him happy like that again. I'm going to take it." She stood up and held Cooper up on her shoulder as she grabbed a pan to start breakfast for everyone. "Coop, you get to help Aunty Marta make a pie."

"Too bed we ain't got any arsenic," Darcy grumbled with her nose deep in her coffee cup.

Marta quirked a tawny brow at the woman she loved like a sister, "Remind me not to get on your bad side when you haven't slept."

Later that morning, with only Cooper in tow, the two women set off in the wagon to the Flaherty place. JoAnna answered the door in her nightgown with a shawl wrapped around herself looking miserable. "Can I help you?" she asked, covering her mouth as she coughed weakly.

"Heya, Poppet," Marta answered quietly, as if she might startle the girl if she spoke to loud. She reached sideways for Darcy's hand and gave it a squeeze. The dead look in Jo's eyes was too familiar for both of them. Four years hadn't cleared their memories of how Darcy looked when she was in Mick's house. "The boys said that we've been neighbors all this time and I had to come and see you for myself."

JoAnna just stared for a moment before a half smile softened her hardened appearance. "Marta?" Her voice cracked and she looked down and tried to cover herself better with her shawl before looking up fearfully at Darcy.

"This is Darcy, she's my friend and Spot's wife. She's ok, we dragged her along from New York."

Jo seemed confused for a moment, before she stepped aside to let them in. "Gordon went to find work. I don't feel very well, so I'll understand if you don't want to stay." She laughed harshly. "I'm not exactly a Park Avenue princess now."

Marta blushed and set her basket on the tiny kitchen table, ignoring Jo's self deprecation. "We made you some chicken and dumplings and a berry pie. It looks like maybe you could use the rest." She tried to smile, but this young woman in front of her was so far from the girl she knew that her mouth didn't want to obey. Jo was so thin and frail looking."You let Darce and I give you a hand while you rest."

Darcy moved over behind JoAnna and touched the inside of her wrist to Jo's forehead. "Sweets, you are burning up. Lets get you to bed."

"I can't," JoAnna groaned, pulling away from Darcy's touching standing on shaking legs. "I have to clean the house and feed the animals or Gordon will be cross with me."

"We'll take care of it," Darcy said in that same quiet voice. Marta knew that voice, it was the same one she used when Spot was losing it. Darcy never ceased to amaze her. The amount of strength that was hiding behind all of the sass and wit was seemingly never ending. She came out of the Dockside crucible forged into something that was nearly unbreakable. She hoisted Jo out of her chair and held her up long enough to walk across the cabin and tuck her into bed.

"Why do you care?" Jo whispered.

"Because you deserve it."

Jo's deep, dark brown eyes pleaded with them when Marta came over and handed Darcy a cool washcloth to bathe JoAnna's face with. Jo locked their eyes together, making Marta want to gather her up like a child and run home with her. "How can you even look at me knowing that I left him."

Marta smiled at her sadly, but didn't answer. Darcy set the rag on her forehead and she shivered against it. "Did Gordon know you were sick?" She nodded and pulled the covers more tightly around her shoulders. Darcy's little pink mouth pressed into a firm line. She pressed Jo's damp, dark hair back from her face until she fell into a restless, feverish sleep.

Marta pulled her back towards the stove. "I'll be home once Gordon comes back."

Darcy's face was still hardened and grim. They both looked around the desolate cabin. It looked like they moved in the day before with how stark it was. The only things in it were the bedstead, the kitchen table with two chairs, the stove and a trunk at the end of the bed. The girl Marta once knew wouldn't live like this. "She isn't that girl anymore," Darcy gritted, "He's twisted her into someone else. You have to be patient with her if you're going to stay." She cocked a blonde brow and smirked knowingly while pointing a finger up towards the tip of Marta's nose., "Try to be a lady, huh? Don't bait Gordon when he comes home. You won't do her any favors doing stuff like that." Marta rolled her eyes and handed the baby back to his mother.

Jo woke herself up coughing not long after Marta finished tidying the sparse house. She watched the woman she once looked up to in awe from her bed, but Marta just smiled back sadly. "How are you feeling, Poppet?" There was sweat beaded on Jo's temples and her breathing was shallow.

Jo stared at her dully. "Why are you helping me?" she croaked. Marta looked deep into her dark eyes and saw nothing of the sweet, fanciful child she once knew. Darcy's words began to sink in. Gordon had taken that kind, silly creature and twisted her into something filled with fear and mistrust. She'd been fed a steady diet of betrayal and manipulation for years.

Marta cleared her throat and pulled a piece of hair around the front to keep her fingers busy. "You took care of one of mine once upon a time when he needed it. If it will make you feel better, you can say that I'm repaying a debt," she paused and perched on the edge of the bed, "but really its because you've been in the back of my mind all this made a mark on us, Jo, whether you want to believe it or not. Trout was out searching for you for weeks. Your aunt came by every day for weeks to see if we'd seen you."

"My mother?"

Marta looked away, and that was all the answer Jo needed. She swiped a hand across her red eyes and stared at the window silently. Marta had just about given up on continuing the conversation when JoAnna's thin, rasping voice whistled out in to the small room. "I waited so long. The train was pulling away when I jumped on. We both thought the other didn't want us." Suddenly, the crackling paper in Marta's pocket was like a lead weight on her leg. She pulled it out and placed it in JoAnna's hand.

"He wanted you. He had no clue you were going." She could see Trout's pale sleepy face as she tucked him into bed in the school attic the next day. She asked what he was calling the sweet girl, and he showed her the gesture he'd chosen, tucking his middle three fingers in, his thumb and pinky out and moving his hand back and forth. It was strange, most of the name gestures he made up had to do with their physical appearance or common mannerisms. As Kisser, hers was a kiss placed on a clenched fist. It was much later that she learned the other meaning of that motion in the language they taught at the school. It meant "the same."

She watched Jo scowl and retreat, crushing the paper in her hand. Marta rinsed out the washcloth and wrung it back out before placing it on Jo's chest, pulling a comforted sigh from her. "Its not important," she whispered in that rough, sandpaper voice. She looked at the paper in her hand. "What is this?"

"Something you should know. You don't have to stay here."

She read it, her knuckles dragging absently up and down her breastbone. It only took a few words for the tears to start flowing down her gaunt cheeks. "I can't just leave my husband because my childhood sweetheart is refusing to allow himself to love anyone else! I loved him, but its too late now!" Marta wrapped her arms tightly around JoAnna and held her close like she would one of her children. Jo cried until she fell asleep with tears still running down her face. Even with a feverish head on her chest, Marta couldn't make herself let go. She held tight, wondering if Jo could make the two mile hike back to the ranch or if she would end up having to carry her most of the way. She had just decided that she needed to try when the door banged open and Gordon came in.

He eyed her cooly before pasting a charming smile on his boyish face. "Afternoon Missus Fletcher. To what do we owe the pleasure of your company?"

She gently released JoAnna from her embrace, setting her back against her pillow and trying not to wince at the whimper that came from the girl at the loss of comfort. Her hands ran down her skirt, smoothing imaginary wrinkles before she narrowed her golden eyes and glared at him. "If I had known you had a wife, we would have had to over for supper. Both of you."

He stuffed his hands in his pockets, "Shoulda known when she knew Spot and Eli that you'd come sniffing around. My wife is my business, and if I don't want her consorting with the likes of you and your brother then she won't. Stay out of my house and away from my wife, or I'll get the sheriff." He hustled her towards the door as Jo whimpered again and propped herself up on one elbow. The look of horror on her face as the two squared off was enough to help Marta keep her temper. She didn't want to make it any worse for the girl.

She stomped all the way home, hissing and spitting like an angry housecat. Fletcher was sitting on the front steps of the white clapboard two story, leaned back on his elbows with his legs sprawled down the steps.

He grinned, long and lazy and raked his hand back through his golden blonde hair. "How's th'other guy look?" he drawled as he hauled himself to his feet and wrapped his arms around her.

She buried her face in his shirt and let out a long string of cuss words that would make most God fearing men blush, but Fletcher just chuckled into her hair. "Don't be surprised if Cruz stops by tomorrow," she mumbled, not bothering to pull her face away.

"Lord Almighty, woman, what did you do?' he groaned, trying to hide a chuckle. She sighed and ran her hands up and down his ribs and pressed her face into his muscular chest. "What am I doing, Fletcher?" she moaned.

"You're a good woman," he said quietly, his voice rumbling straight into her ear. "Crazy as all get out, but the best kind of crazy. I'm proud of you." She smiled up at him, and locked lips with him. "Come on Wild Woman, we'll see if them boys left you anything from lunch."

He guided her in with an arm at the small of her back. "Didn't you eat?"

"No, Ma'am," he answered. "I was a little preoccupied, waiting for my gal to come home. When Darcy came back alone, I had half a mind to ride on over there and wait you out."

She stopped and grinned, "Oh, so all all that talk about me being a Fletcher through and through, having no problem taking care of a little weasel…blah blah blah…that was what?"

"Ego stroking. Blatant, self serving ego stroking," he answered apologetically.

She smiled like a naughty child and kissed the tip of his nose. "You know just what to say to make sure I'm distracted all day long, don'tcha, Mr. Cowpoke?"


	8. Chapter 8

The boys were out on the land, fixing fences in a distant piece of pasture so that they could let the cattle get to fresh grazing land. Jim and Fletcher worked on one stretch, while Trout and Spot worked about a quarter of a mile down the line. While Jim and Fletcher carried on, bantering while they worked, ribbing and teasing each other, the two grown up newsboys were silent until Spot suddenly looked up, inspecting Trout and asked, "Can I ask you something?"

Trout snorted, but didn't stop working. If he stopped he wasn't sure he'd get going again. "You did."

Spot quirked up his scar split eyebrow and smirked, "You got a smart mouth on you. Makes me miss you not talking." Trout sniggered a bit and flipped him off, before raised a brow to encourage Spot to continue with his question. "Why ain't you found another girl? What's so damn special about JoAnna?"

Trout's brow furrowed and he dropped his mallet on the ground and brushed his gloved hands against each other. "Wh-what's so special ab-b-bout Darcy?"

"Don't be like that? Darcy's my wife. It ain't the same. If you had come with us and hadn't got Darcy, I wouldn't have sat and moped for her. I woulda found another girl."

Trout snorted derisively, "If you could ffffind one with that p-p-pretty face."

Spot glared at him, but the smirk lifting his mouth cut the intensity. "Seriously missing my mute best friend right now. She's married. She told you to buzz off."

Trout's brow furrowed and he rubbed his arm absently before picking his tools back up and starting back on pegging the rail into place. "Girls see me…and they ssssmile," he said slowly and quietly. "They talk, I smile, but soon I hhhhave to say something and then they see." He paused, leaning over the newly secured fence rail. "I c-can't keep up. Jo went slow for me.." Spot dropped his tools too and leaned his back and elbows against the rail.

"What about your school? You keep up with the best of them with your hands. It ain't like you's slow in the head or nothing"

Trout chuckled, "I c-c-could talk to thhhhhhhem, but I didn't ffffffffit in." He never seemed to really fit in anywhere, not at home before he ran away, not in the Lodging House where Spot and Dcat took turns speaking for him the first six months, not even at the school. He only ever fel brave among the other students when JoAnna was at his side, her soft hand in his. With her, he always felt normal. Complete. He sighed, the 'deep shit' sigh, as Marta called it, as anger rose within him. "Why do you c-c-care?" Trout snapped. "You never c-cared b-before!"

Spot turned and kicked a neighboring rail over. "I always cared. I'm a piece of shit, ok, always have been and I did almost everything wrong when it came to being your friend, but do not think for a second that I didn't care."

Trout sighed and let his head drop. "I was di-different than them, but I liked the k-k-kids. I liked giving them what you and Mmmmarta and Sssssscat gave me."

Spot heaved the rail back into place and started driving a peg into it. "We didn't give you nothing. We didn't have nothing."

"A chance. A vvvvoice. Words. You gave me p-p-plenty."

Spot scowled and went silent and sullen again. They went back to their work until Will came hightailing across the pasture. "Pa!" he called to Fletcher, "Sheriff Cruz is here. Mama said to come."

Fletcher stood and stretched his arms high over his head. He moved with no sense of urgency, yet always managed to get everything done. He laughed roughly. "That woman is gonna be the death of me. Y'all stay here and finish this up. Will, stay and help Jim."

It wasn't too long after that Darcy was ringing the dinner bell on the porch, calling them in from the fields. Sheriff Cruz sat at the kitchen table with a plate full of food, conversing easily with Marta and Fletcher. "…so you can see how important I felt it was since I took three days to address it." Will beamed up at the men as they all washed up together, so proud to have done honest work. "Eli," the sheriff greeted jovially.

"Mmmmanuel," Trout answered, pulling his chair out. He didn't get the chance to scoot it back in however, before his lap was commandeered by someone tiny and blonde with a particularly fierce look on her face. Her arms were crossed over her little chest and glared up at him from his lap with her silvery eyes. He drew back from her accusing look with an exaggerated pout on his face. 'What's wrong, Buttercup?' he asked with his hands. She refused his act though, sniffing and sticking her tipped up nose in the air. Darcy and Spot looked up and chuckled at her melodrama. 'You make me feel sad, Buttercup. I can't read your mind. Tell me.'

Her face changed from haughty to sad in an instant. "I'm your onliest Buttercup, right Uncle Eli?"

"Yep," he answered, popping the 'p' as he tapped the end of her nose. "Mmmmmy best ga-guh-girl."

She grinned triumphantly, "See Aunty Marta?" she gloated, "Told you I'm his girl, not JoAnna."

All of the adults in the room froze, even the sheriff. No one even dared breathe. He stared at her for a moment, his eyes wide, searching her face before he gently lifted her down and set her on her feet. "Wwwwhy are you t-t-t-talking about JoAnna? Wh-wh-what's going on?"

Cruz sighed and pushed his plate away, pushing back his dark, thinning hair. "Mr and Mrs Winslow Fletcher and Mr Eli Cooper are hereby officially warned to keep off of the Flaherty property. Any trespassing will be prosecuted."

"What d-d-d-did I do?" he asked indignantly. "I o-o-only saw them once in t-t-ttown, at the sssocial."

Cruz wiped his mouth and stood, "Flaherty found a letter of a rather…inappropriate nature in Mrs. Flaherty's possession after Mrs Fletcher and Mrs Conlon went over there the other day. The letter is from you." His heart slammed to a stop in his chest and he swallowed loudly as he dragged his eyes to Marta's face.

He was breathing heavily through his nose. "I threw it…b-b-b-burned it."

"It was on the floor," she admitted quietly. "I opened it to make sure it wasn't important."

He kicked his chair so hard that it flew across the floor and crashed into the table before letting a few particularly nasty signs fly. "Those are bad words," Clarice whispered, making Jesse accidentally snort milk up his nose. Trout gave one last glare to Marta and banged out the kitchen door with her at his heels.

'You had no right,' he signed, not caring in the slightest that she didn't understand most of it.

"I know you're mad, and you have every right to be. I should have thrown it in the stove. She needed to know, Eli. She needs you."

He whipped around and grabbed a milking stool and threw it out the door where it clattered to the ground. 'I don't want to be just the better of two options! I want her to love me like she used to!'

"I don't understand, Trout. You know I don't. Can't you tell me?"

"G-g-get out. Go 'wwwwway," he answered, glaring at her before turning away.

"Trout. You love her and she loves you. She cried herself to sleep in my arms over you. I'm sorry I overstepped, but you gave her hope in that letter. And she loves you now like she did then. I did get that much." She waited for him to face her again, to yell at her, to throw something, she was ready for anything except what she got. Nothing. "Don't you shut me out, Trout Cooper."

His mind was roaring. He could barely hear over it. "Lllllleave. Me. 'Llllllone," he gritted through clenched teeth.

"Ok," she answered in a soft, shaking voice. "I'm sorry, Eli. I really am." She walked out with her arms wrapped around her middle. Those were his words, his thoughts. He was very careful with them. As much as he did want Jo to know that he would always be there, waiting for her, it wasn't his place to tell her. She was married...to an asshole, but still. Marta, of all people, should have known better than to give his words to her without his permission.

For so long, he kept his words tucked in his back pocket, only showing them to others when he needed to say something. As a child and a teen, his few spoken words were said in private. Only Spot knew he could say a few stammered words clearly. Spot showed him that he wouldn't ridicule him for it. He saw past the words and saw the underlying intelligence. When he was arrested at the rally, already beaten and broken, they asked him his name, and he just stared back at them. He was separated from the others because the cops thought he was being insolent and locked up alone. Forgotten. He decided then and there that he needed to say his name, and JoAnna caught him, weeks later, practicing on the roof of the school. He hated that she heard his garbled words, but she just smiled up at him, her elbow perched on his shoulder, her index finger still softly resting gently against his jaw. He leaned his face into it slightly, liking the feel of her skin rubbing against his, but popped back upright when she said, "Will you talk to me again?" His eyebrows pinched together and he pulled away. No. He would not purposefully make an idiot of himself for her entertainment. "Trout," she said quietly, "I liked hearing your voice." Her cheeks flushed and she looked down at her lap, where her hands were now clasped nervously. "It's just what I thought you'd sound like from your laugh. I like when you laugh. Racetrack said you don't laugh, that its just for me, and I like that." Warmth, tingling and happy, filled his chest and he didn't want to tell her no, but he also didn't want to talk. Her head tilted to the side. "Do you speak Italian?"

He cocked an eyebrow at her and managed a small, teasing smirk as he signed, 'I don't speak.'

"Haha, very funny." She chuckled and rolled her eyes while he ducked his head to mask his own wicked grin. "All right, do you READ Italian or LISTEN in Italian?" He grinned and shook his head. She nodded and leaned into him, making his breath catch again. Her lips were so close to his ear that he could almost feel them brushing his skin. "Amarti sarebbe la mia più grande avventura," she purred in beautifully accented Italian. Dear Lord, that sent something that could only be described as a zing through his spine and he had to bite the inside of his lip to keep a moan from escaping.

When he recovered from the dazed state she put him in, he realized she was looking at him expectantly and it dawned on him what she was waiting for. 'I don't like it. I sound stupid,' he argued.

"But you're not and I know it," she answered calmly. "You are smart, kind and the best listener I've ever known." She took his hand, fidgeting nervously, holding it between hers, inspecting the scars that littered it and tracing the creases in his palm with the tip of her finger. "No one ever listened to me before you. I would go and spend all day up high in my tree reading and looking at my pictures because no one in the real world lived up to the standard set by the characters in the stories and the people I made up. But then here you are, in the flesh, real as can be." She looked up at him through her eyelashes again and he realized how much he wanted her to be his. He knew he was fond of her and found her oddities endearing before, but now he felt like he needed to be around her. "What I said to you is something I would never breath to another soul. I'd be too embarrassed to even to say it to you in a language you'd understand."

He sighed, staring upward. 'Don't laugh,' he warned her.

"Never," she promised, taking his hand back in hers and squeezing encouragingly.

He couldn't look at her. He took a deep breath, squeezed his eyes shut tightly and turned his head away from her, trying to convince himself that it would be all right, that she would still be there, still be squeezing his hand and wouldn't look at him differently when he was done. The words in his head were: "I want to kiss you so bad it hurts me," but the noise that came from his lips didn't match at all. He yanked his hand from hers and clapped it over his mouth, as if he needed a physical barrier to stop anymore unintelligible babble from spilling out of him. His knees pulled up to his chest and he turned away from her until he felt her hand on his shoulder and her chin on the other.

"That wasn't so bad, was it?" she asked in his ear, her voice barely a murmur. He nodded. It was gut wrenching; the stuff of his worst nightmares, just like knowing that she now knew that he was too pathetic to even move on from her. He couldn't find a single other woman in all of New York who was willing to look past his quiet, mumbled stuttering long enough to give him a chance.

"Eli," Fletcher called in the door. He hauled himself out of his hiding place and dusted himself off. "Can you clean up this barn? I keep telling the boys to do it, but damn kids don't seem to understand what I mean when I say clean. I'm sure you can handle it."

"Yessir," he answered gratefully and Fletcher sauntered back out to the fields in that easy going, no hurry way he had.

He stayed holed up in the barn all afternoon. He mucked every stall, swept all the passways and cleaned and oiled every saddle, harness and bridle on the wall. "Mama says supper's on, Uncle Eli," Clarice called from the door.

"Ok," he growled and she climbed up on a saddle tree after he hauled the freshly cleaned saddle back onto it's rack on the wall.

"Eli?"

"Yeah, B-b-buttercup?"

"You mad at me?" He turned around and looked at her with his brows furrowed and shook his head. He straddled the saddle tree and turned her around to sit in his lap, tilting his head to the side. She understood the question. "You been out here all day and you only say 'Bu-bu-buttercup' when you're mad."

'Not true,' he signed.

'Not mad?' she asked, making a comical mad face.

He shook his head and gently pulled his fingers through her corn silk hair, trying to ease out some of the tangles. When she kept looking at him expectantly he sighed, and ran his hands downward in front of his face. 'Sad.'

She gasped and glared, upset that anyone would dare make her Eli sad. 'Why?'

'My friend is hurting and I can't help her.'

"JoAnna?" she asked and he nodded as he made Jo's old name sign. The toddler giggled, "That's not a name, Uncle Eli, that's 'me too.'"

He let out a small, half hearted laugh, 'I used to tell her that there was a string…'. He smiled, tugging on a piece of her hair before he finished his sentence. 'A string from my heart to hers.' He touched his thumb to his chest and drew the line across until his pinky touched hers. "But, I d-d-don't think she feels it anymore."

She grabbed onto his pinky finger, "You can tie it to my heart so yours doesn't hurt anymore."

He had to swallow past the tightness in his throat. He couldn't believe that sweet creature came from Spot. He wondered how different Spot might have been with a mother who took better care of him. "I don't think your Dad will be happy about that."

She nodded, "He says I can't get married until he's old, but you can marry me and tie your string up so you won't be sad anymore."

He chuckled, hiding the moisture around his eyes as he kissed her cheek. "It's all yours, Buttercup." No one else wants it, his brain finished silently. She wrapped her arms around his neck and rubbed her cheek against his stubbled face before he swung her around onto his back while he cleaned up his tools and supplies.

The sun was setting the tops of the mountains ablaze. They stopped to watch for a moment before she patted his head and pointed, "What's that, Uncle Eli?" He shaded his eyes against the setting sun and squinted to see what she was pointing at. What he saw shoved all of the air out of his lungs and he swung her back down to the ground.

"Get Daddy," he ordered. He took off across the land where a person was stumbling and weaving through the scrub grass. Her nightgown fluttered in the cold wind and her deep, dark hair streamed out sideways. She was backlit from the molten orange glow of the setting sun, but he'd know her, even in silhouette, anywhere.

Her white nightgown was damp and dirty. Her face was swollen and bruised, her feet bare. He ran to her, catching her as she stumbled. "Jo?" he asked, pushing her windblown hair from her face. Her face was pale and her skin clammy but heat radiated from her. She smiled absently at the sound of his voice before collapsing in his arms. "Jo!" He scooped her up and stumbled to the house as quickly as he could. She was here, she came. She was sick, and hurt and delirious, but she came. She followed her heart to him.


	9. Chapter 9

She tried to speak, but what came out was a harsh grating sigh that made her shiver. Her whole body ached and she could feel her heartbeat in every limb and something was keeping her eyelids from opening. A heavy, wet cough ripped through her and her hand clutched instinctively to her chest. "Shhhhh," a soft female voice soothed as something cool and wet swiped over her face. "You're all right now, Poppet. We've got you." She fought her eyes open, feeling every ounce of blood in her veins, slugging along thickly. "You're at my house, though only you could explain why." Marta smiled at her in a concerned, motherly kind of a way. JoAnna took in the way she had her first few silver hairs at her temples and a few wrinkles around her warm hazel eyes. She was different, as all people are after nearly a decade, but she was just so perfectly…Marta that Jo sighed and relaxed back into her pillow. "You've been here two days, the doctor said you've got bronchitis, but he's been giving you shots and you're doing better. So long as you take it easy, you should be ok."

A sweet sigh caught their attention and they both looked to the armchair under the window at the other end of the room. Marta smiled at Eli, who was asleep in the chair with his long legs stretched out in front of him. His head was tipped back against the wall and his big, strong arms were wrapped around the sleeping body of a tiny blonde girl. Her soft, round cheeks, were pressed against his heart as she slept with her mouth open. Marta chuckled, "His protector. He's been by your side for two days, he wouldn't leave, and wherever Eli is in the house, Clarice is sure to to be nearby."

"Is she his?" she asked, surprised at how fearful her voice sounded. She didn't fully understand what her fever crazed brain was thinking when it steered her to the Fletcher Ranch, but she did know with absolute certainty, that she had never wanted anything more than she wanted for that little girl to not be his child right then.

"No, she's Spot's."

JoAnna found herself attempting to breathe and swallow at the same time, succeeding only in choking on her own saliva. "Spot Conlon has a kid?" she sputtered.

"Two actually," Marta answered bemusedly as she continued to bathe JoAnna's face, chest and arms with cool water while Jo attempted to come to terms with Spot procreating. "You met his wife and their other baby when we were at your house. Do you remember? Darcy?"

"I remember Darcy," she murmured, her eyes not leaving Eli's face. "He kicked me out because of that letter. He told me that he'd divorce me and I'd be on my own." She smiled sadly at Marta's shock. "It's not the first time; he'll take me back. He always does. Its my fault really; I get so upset over things."

"He's turned you out before?" Marta growled.

"Mmm-hmmm," she answered aloofly and then frowned. "He read Eli's letter while I was sleeping and he found my book full of things from New York. They're all from Eli. I should have thrown it all away when we got married."

"Why didn't you?" she asked, but Jo didn't have an answer, not one she could say out loud. She shrugged. Those few things were the glue that kept the pieces of her broken heart from shriveling up and dying; they were all that let her feeling anything. Marta frowned and nodded towards a cup on the bedside table, "You drink that tea and I'll go make you some breakfast. Let him sleep if you can. He'll be a blubbering mess otherwise."

"Heard that," he mumbled without opening his eyes or even shifting his weight.

Marta grinned, "If you'd go and sleep in your own bed we wouldn't have disturbed you," she chided and stood to relieve him of Clarice's sleeping body. The little girl grumbled and squirmed before settling on Marta's shoulder and falling back asleep.

"C-c-c-coffee mmmmmmmme? Please?" He groaned at the out of order words and buried his face in his hands before trying again. "Please…may…I have c-coffee." Marta smiled as the deep red flush spread up from his collar to his ears.

"Only because you're my favorite," she answered, squeezing his shoulder.

"Wrong, I'm your favorite," Spot quipped as he sauntered by. JoAnna's blood that hurt every time her heart moved it through her veins froze and she glared at him.

"Nope," Eli called back with a sly smile. "I am, sh-sh-sh-she just feels sorry for you c-cause you're crazy."

"Oh, I'll show you my crazy, Smartass," Spot answered with a grin that floored her. He was pointedly avoiding looking at her.

Marta rolled her eyes before glaring teasingly at Spot, "Get OUT," she grumbled, "or I'll show you both what crazy looks like." She winked at Jo and pulled Trout upright, "You go change and wash up and I'll make you coffee. And you," she said, pointing at Spot, "Jim and Fletch are waiting for you to get to work. Get a move on."

The boys started to do as they were asked. Spot hustled out without looking JoAnna's way, but she was too weak to say what she wanted anyway. Eli stood, stretching his arms high over his head and she looked over the man he became. Her head was spinning, whether from the fever or from him, she didn't know, but she reached out for him. "Stay with me, like you promised," she croaked in that hoarse voice. He dragged the chair to her bedside and sat down, looking uncomfortable as he fidgeted and squirmed. Shivers wracked her fragile body as her fever began to soar again and he bathed her face with cool water. She watched him listlessly, but he seemed intent on not meeting eyes with her. "Will you play for me?" He peeked up through those amazing lashes of his and nodded.

'It's downstairs,' he signed.

She put her hand on his and felt him tremble under her touch. "I'm rusty. No one has signed to me since I last saw you. Please talk to me."

She nearly fell asleep before he replied, looking sidelong at her. "Vvvvvviolin is in the k-k-k…in the ki…kit….kit-shin," he murmured softly. She smiled, unable to keep her eyes open any longer and instead of getting up to get the violin or pulling the harmonica he always played for her in New York from his pocket, he close his big hand around hers and started to hum a sweet, soft lullaby like one might sing to a baby. It was the safest she'd felt in years and she fell deeply asleep.

They used to dance. She'd walk him from the school to her aunt's townhouse. Her uncle wanted to be a musician and had a huge room filled with instruments. With his arm in a cast and sling, Trout couldn't play them, but just being in such a room was cathartic for him. JoAnna would wind up a victrola and at first, he just watched her dance, holding position with an imaginary partner. She hummed along and began to dance around the room with her eyes closed, smiling to herself. He saw his chance, and much as it terrified him, he had to take it.

He stepped up to her and tapped her shoulder, bowing low when she opened her eyes. 'Teach me?'

She grinned, "I don't know, I believe my dance card is full."

'I'm cutting in.' He stepped in closer and took her hand, bowing again. She giggled and curtsied.

"You put your hand here," she said, blushing as she placed his big paw at her waist, "and mine goes here." She put her hand on his elbow. "Normally, we'd hold hands with the other, but this will work." She put her other hand tenderly on his injured shoulder, easily adapting to his needs. "Nice straight shoulders now," she said, tilting her neck gracefully to the side. He gently pinched her side to get her attention and stuck his nose in the air when she looked. She giggled again, "Yes, just like that." Under her tutelage and with his understanding of musical timing they whirled around the room nearly effortlessly until the gramophone slowed and finally stopped. He twirled her around and pulled her into him, so that their faces were almost touching and took a deep breath, his heart fluttering madly.

"Jo…" he started, speaking low. His words were just for her ears. Her brows flicked upward with surprise. His hand released hers, traveling up her arm, her shoulder, her neck, coming to rest at her cheek, cupping around the soft flesh while his thumb grazed gently over her lip. "I…w-w-want it….thththththis. Mmmmmouth."

"You want my mouth?" she asked in a whisper. He nodded and leaned in, pressing his lips to hers. At first, she drew in a sharp breath, but she didn't pull away, and once the surprise passed, she leaned into him and kissed back fervently. Their lips fit together perfectly, his over hers like pieces of a puzzle. He started to pull away, but a string tugged him back in, strung tightly from his heart to hers. He peppered her mouth with tiny, soft kisses until she pulled him back in by his shirt. When they separated and each took a trembling breath, she grinned up at him through her eyelashes. Her eyes were glazed over. "Oh m-m-my word," she stammered. "Trout…that was…"

He put a finger over her lip to quiet her, and then placed his hand on his chest, "Eee-Eli."

She smiled in wonder. "I can use your name?"

He nodded. 'Only you,' he signed. 'Special.'

Her body slammed into his, making him yelp with pain as her lips met with his again, but he didn't let her pull away. Her left hand reached into the fabric of his sling to curl around and gently squeeze his fingers.

She opened her eyes and found herself staring into a pair of big, startling, silver-blue ones. The little girl ducked out of sight while Jo recoiled, coughing again, but not so heavily as before. When she could breathe again, she scooted to the edge of the bed and smiled down at Clarice. "You scared me." She wondered how long she slept.

Clarice stood up and tugged at her navy blue dress. A ribbon the same color hung haphazardly in her hair. She set a book on the side table and signed, "My name," and she made her name sign that Eli gave her, brushing the tips of her four fingers against her chin twice. "Uncle Eli calls me Buttercup." She repeated the sign.

"Buttercup," Jo mimicked with a smile. "Buttercups are my favorite flower. He must love you a lot to give you such a beautiful name. My name is Jo." She made her name sign and the little girl's eyes widened. She clamored up onto the bed and crawled towards Jo, poking and prodding, doing everything but pulling the nightgown off of Jo's body. "Clarice!" she squealed.

Finally she sat back with a pout on her sweet face. "It's not there. He's right," she said dejectedly.

"What's not there?" she asked, holding the neck of her nightgown tightly so that Clarice couldn't try to climb in again.

"The string!"

Jo laughed, "It was never a real string, Buttercup. But I still feel it. Everyday."

She clapped her hands and jumped on the bed. "Then you can fix Uncle Eli! You just have to tell him! He said he gave it to me so he wouldn't be sad, but it's not working. You can fix it!"

"No." Her voice came out rough and cold. A fear so potent and heady that she almost couldn't breathe gripped her and she caught Clarice before she could go bounding off the bed to get Eli.

Clarice scowled and dropped to sitting. "No? You want him to be sad?"

"Of course I don't. But sweetie, I can't just fix him. We don't know each other anymore." She rubbed her knuckles against her breastbone and tried to draw a deep breath but couldn't. "Buttercup, I need you to promise not to tell him," she whispered urgently, holding the girl's tiny hands and trying to muster a smile. "Can you keep the string? For a little bit longer? I can't…" Her eyes filled with tears and her voice died away. She drew her legs up and leaned her face onto them. Clarice stroked her hair and she couldn't help but smile.

"You've got broken insides," Clarice said, matter of factly.

JoAnna sat up swiftly and stared hard at the little girl. She still lisped her s's and couldn't say her r's. She threw temper tantrums when she didn't get her way and played with dolls, but she was damn perceptive. "What?" Jo whispered.

"Your insides are broken, like my daddy's.". Clarice didn't notice how she cringed at being compared to Spot. "He was very broken, but he's better now because Mommy and Aunty love him so much and I because I came out of my mommy's tummy. Maybe Uncle Eli can fix your insides so you can keep his string."

Clarice wasn't wrong. She'd always been strange, too aloof and bookish for polite society, too naive and ignorant to be useful. She didn't fit anywhere. Not until Eli. She always fit with him, but she wasn't free to be his. After she left New York, it seemed that each person she met only wanted to break her a little more, snipping little pieces off of her as if her innocence was food for them. Now, she wasn't even a whole person. She couldn't help Eli. "You keep it safe for now, ok?" She wiped her face with her hand and sniffled. "You keep it until you think I'm fixed enough to be trusted with it." She smiled as Clarice beamed and puffed up with pride at being given such a grown up responsibility, even though Jo hoped she'd forget it by morning. "What is this?" she asked, picking up the book that Clarice was holding when she came in. The Tales of Hans Christian Andersen. "I had this book when I was a girl."

"It's my favorite," Clarice said, settling in next to JoAnna and opening the cover. "Uncle Eli got it for me."

"Of course he did," she sighed with a little laugh. There were books stacked next to the nightstand. The last time she was awake, things were hazy, but she was almost sure they weren't there before. "Do you have a favorite?" Clarice smiled and began turning pages, stopping at The Nightingale. "Of course it is." She held onto her composure long enough to read the story, but quickly sent Clarice out to play and curled up under her blankets for a good cry after that. Her heart hurt and her brain didn't know what to do. She didn't understand why she came here. It seemed like she just wanted more punishment, being around this hurt far worse than being rejected by Gordon.


	10. Chapter 10

Like so many other times in the past few days, Eli climbed the seps to the second story of the ranch house and nudged the guest room door open with his toe to check on her. Her hair streamed across the pillow in soft waves as she slept peacefully. She terrified him. He had no clue what to do about her being here, but he couldn't stay away. He brought her books that he ordered from the general store after buying out the stock Mason's had. The girl she was would have squealed in excitement at the piles of "friends" at her bedside. She would have found one immediately and buried her nose in it, sighing in contentment. When she wasn't reading, she would still hold onto them like talismans, letting the feel of the canvas and the smell of the glue in the binding soothe her nerves. But this JoAnna stared at them like they might bite her and hadn't so much as touched them. It was the same way she looked at him. Watching her sleep, he wanted to go and sit by her side, touch her hair, hold her hand, but he couldn't. She wasn't his. Some days, it felt like she never would be, like she was put on the earth just to torture him. He had to keep his distance, protect his heart.

Even thought Gordon was an asshole who didn't deserve her, even though he kicked her out and she walked in the cold to find Eli, until she said she was never going back, he couldn't let himself get too attached. If his life had proved anything, it was that the floor could always fall out from under him, no matter how good and stable it seemed. So, he just watched. He went in and talked with her when she asked, but he kept his hands in his lap and away from her. "You know," Fletcher called from the top of the stairs, "It's much easier to woo women when they're awake. The way you're doing it is more creepy than it is romantic."

Trout snorted. It wasn't as easy as a million dollar smile and a cowboy drawl for him. He didn't have half of Fletcher's natural, easygoing charm going for him. Still, he painted a smirk on his face and fought the words out, knowing that Fletch would have some kind of homestyle, cowboy pearl of wisdom that might not actually help anything, but would be sure to make Eli smile. "B-b-b-better than rrrrrrrroping her ffffffor at-at...attet…" No matter how he tried, that word wouldn't come out. His hands signed it, but Fletcher didn't understand the gesture.

"Attention," JoAnna murmured, looking at them wearily. She pushed herself up and made the sign again. "That's the sign for 'attention.'" Eli swallowed thickly, his feet backing him away from her as his cheeks burned with humiliation. What if she heard what Fletch said about "wooing women?" He didn't want to woo anyone but her...but he didn't want her to know about it! Fletch had him by the arm to keep him still while she reached for a sip of water, closing her beautiful eyes, as dark and warm as black coffee as the liquid soothed the lingering scratches in her throat. "What needs attention?"

Fletcher chuckled and rubbed at his bottom lip, "You do, Puss. Go on, now, rest up. I'll take care of this fish infestation so he will let you sleep in peace." He grabbed Eli in a headlock and rubbed his knuckles against the younger man's scalp. "C'mon, you! We got work to do! You think shit scoops itself 'round here?" With an award winning smile that managed to draw a whisper of a giggle from Jo, he dragged Eli away down the hall and halfway down the stairs before letting him go with a hearty slap on the back. "You ain't gonna get her by roping her, that's true 'nough. She ain't Marta. Truth be told that woulda made my first wife cry if I'd tried it on her. Caroline was a gentle soul, like JoAnna. She wanted nothing more out of life than to sit in her meadow with her honeybees and butterflies and be a mother to her babies. She loved to hear and see how I loved her, where Marta has entirely different needs. You are gonna have to talk to her, Eli. She needs to hear from you, not Marta or a note, what you want. You knew that girl inside and out at one time. Think of what you've always wanted to say to that JoAnna, and say it to this one." He paused, a teasing smirk drawing up one side of his mouth as he raked his fingers through his golden curls. "For now, though, just quit oggling the poor girl and get to work."

Eli grinned, ducking his head a bit and nodded. "Yessir."

"Yessir," Fletch imitated and grabbed Eli again, this time jumping on his back and trying to wrestle him to the ground. "Who you calling 'Sir,' huh? I ain't old!" They tussled and laughed and fought their way through the sitting room and out the front door, where the younger Fletcher's joined in the dog pile.

"Old enough th-th-that….OW! Jesse!" He couldn't keep up with the three of them and talk at the same time, but he was going to try! "That you nnnnneed to gang up on mmmme."

"Quit your bellyaching, pretty boy!" Fletcher crowed, laughing maniacally. "Get in there boys, ol' Trout here needs a good roughin' up to clear his head." The two little boys yelled and howled out their battle cries and did their best to help their father, but Trout Cooper was used to that kind of odds. His fighting skills were rusty, but their giggles and yowls let him know that he was making it just hard enough for it to be fun. He missed his students and playing with them.

Spot heard the commotion and came out to watch them from the porch. No amount of waving from Trout seemed to move him to help. Eli grabbed Jesse and threw him over his shoulder and spun him around until he was dizzy and then set him on his brother before tackling Fletcher and pinning him to the ground. He understood now why Marta and Spot ran around after one another when he first arrived, it was like reclaiming the childhood that they never had, working as hard as they did on the streets. The other boys at the Lodging house played, but not Trout and Spot. Spot was all business, even at seven years old, either selling his papers or going to do "bird work" for Kisser. Trout was too busy working twice as hard to sell the same amount of papers as everyone else to have time to play. Every so often though, Scatter would take him with him where he sold and help him out. Scat always had the best ideas for what to do with the extra time and made sure that Trout smiled the whole day. Scat and Fletch were the same in that respect. They wanted the people they cared about to be happy.

Once, when Spot was working on one of his fits and had already pushed his only friend nearly to tears before they even bought their papes, Scat took him with him for the day. He told Trout dirty stories that the little boy didn't really understand as they walked, but he liked the goofy grin on Scat's face when he told them and played pranks on police officers that left Trout's sides hurting from laughing so hard. They stopped to warm themselves at a fire barrel where three men sat on crates and boxes playing music. He couldn't tear his eyes away. Scat and the musicians watched his enamored young face with bemused smiles. Something stirred inside his heart, feeling very much like the feeling he got when words on a page started to make sense to him, like that missing piece falling into place. When the song ended, the harmonica player motioned to his mates to stop and beckoned Trout forward. "You wanna try kid?" He held the instrument out. Trout looked up at Scat who shrugged and nodded. The musician handed it over to the boy who held it gingerly, inspecting the tarnished metal, the holes that the air went in and the ones the sound came out of as if he could see into it's inner workings. "Go ahead kid, give it a go." He blew gently hearing each note before sweeping his lips along the length like he saw the musician do, making a chord that was intricate and ever changing. All of the men could see that the little boy was in love. He tested each note again, listening to the pitches they made and soon managed to toot out faltering rendition of the song the band just played. The music filled his chest with a warmth that he'd never felt before and the men cheered for him. He still felt that anytime he picked up an instrument. Playing with Fletcher and his boys filled him with the same warmth. He loved it. He loved how they all let him feel so normal. JoAnna has always been another missing piece, but he was realizing that maybe Marta and Fletcher, Spot and Darcy and all the little ones were also missing until now. He needed them all and after twenty-one years of being sure that no one needed him, that everyone was better without him, it was a scary realization, but scary in the best of ways. Still, while he laughed and scuffled, he couldn't help but wonder what was wrong with Spot. He stood there at the top of the porch steps, staring down at them all, looking more disturbed than he had since he left New York.

Spot had always had his moods, and they had always swung far and wide, making the way he looked easy to see past. Eli grinned up at him as he pinned Fletch to the ground demanding his surrender. "Uncle!" he ordered. Spot just stared back with a deeply troubled look in his eyes. Hw was never one for brooding, that was always more Trout's style. Spot was quick to judge and acted without remorse. Seeing him mulling and stewing over something was strange and unnerving. It worried Trout, but not enough to quit playing. He pressed harder on Fletcher's back. "Ssssssay it!"

"Nope! I won't say it!" Fletch laughed as he writhed and shifted, trying to find some way out of the hold Eli had on him. They were coated in a silty layer of red dirt that stuck to their skin, hair and clothes like paint. It was hard to see what arms and legs belonged to which person anymore. The boys barreled back over and flopped on top of Eli, knocking the wind out of their father as the weight of all three of them collapsed on him. "Uncle," he finally grunted through constricted lungs. "I give. Get off." Eli sniggered and stood up, taking the two boys with him, one hanging off of each arm. He shook Will off and leaned down to haul Fletch to his feet. The cowboy looked a bit rattled and shaky, but somehow managed to glare and grin at the same time. "Don't say it," he warned, dusting himself off.

"Old," was all Eli had to say and the fight was on again, with the boys laughing and trying to jump in again. He moved with precision and control, just like he always had back when he was Spot's main muscle. His body knew what to do, the challenge was to keep control so that it remained play. He could only figure that was what was stopping Spot. Restraint had never been his strong suite, and since his time in the tenement, it was his daily struggle. Still, Eli wanted his friend to feel the happiness he did. He wanted Spot to smile and get relief from whatever was burdening him. "Spot!" he cried, laughing, but Spot turned and went back into the house. Trout stopped in his tracks and watched him go in. "Ssssssssomething's wrrrr-wrong with him." Their fun was over, even though Will and Jesse were still rolling around in the dirt laughing and yelling.

Spot seemed intent on fighting this battle alone and stomped away, slamming the door of he and Darcy's little house. Fletcher whistled through his teeth. "Been a long time since I seen him take one of his…hard times this way." He stood up and began brushing the silty red dirt off of his clothes and shaking it out of his hair. "Darcy'll kill me if I go in there like this. I'll see to him after we wash up. You go finish that fence on the western border. Take Will since he's obviously got gumption to spare."

"Yessir," Eli mumbled again and began brushing off himself. Will bounced up at his side and took off to the barn to start putting together the tools they would need.

They had all of their tools loaded up and were setting out to do what Fletch asked of them when Marta came out to the porch. "Eli, she's asking for you. Will, come have something to eat while Eli takes care of this." She smiled warmly at him, though her eyes were worried as he rushed past. He didn't pause at that, or even notice. Jo wanted him by her side.

He took the stairs two at a time and bounded in her door like an overly eager pup, nearly falling over his own feet. She startled out of a daydream, her dark eyes fearful and he could have kicked himself. Though he has cleaned up after his play fight with Fletcher, he suddenly felt dusty and not good enough to be there. He fidgeted and squirmed, brushing imaginary dust off of his clothes. "Mmmmmmmmarta sssssaid you w-wanted me to c-c-come..." he mumbled, stuffing his hands in his pockets and trying to shrink his large frame.

She nodded absently, her eyes drifting back to stare out the window. The knuckles of her left hand pressed into her breastbone, dragging up and down. He could swear he heard them, knocking along the ridges of her ribs, she pressed so hard. "Where do you go when you're not with me?" she asked quietly. Thankfully her voice was strong and loud enough now to cover the sound.

He pulled the chair close to the bed and sat with a flop. She didn't seem excited that he was there. She didn't seem…anything. She was empty. This new JoAnna was so subdued, so different he never knew where he stood with her, so he answered, in hopes that she might open up. "Wh-where…ever Ffffffletch tells me to."

Her brow furrowed even as her lips smiled. "It's so strange to hear you speak." He looked away, hunching his shoulders. "Eli…" she whispered sadly. "I didn't mean it like that. It's wonderful; I'm just not used to it." She sighed sadly and looked back to the window before mournfully asking, "Don't you sign at all now?" as if it was something she missed.

'With Clairey,' he answered with his hands, smiling up at her through his eyelashes. She laid back against her pillows as a little contented burst of breath released from her lips. 'No one understands here. I taught Buttercup a little, but…' He dropped his hands to his lap with a thud. "B-b-b-but I llllearned so that I c-c-could talk to them. Sssssso, I talk. T-talk with me."

She nodded, her sadness palpable. "Where do you sleep?" Her voice broke and he nearly did too.

"C-c-c-c-c-cabin." He stood and went to the window, unable to sit any longer. He pointed at the little cabin, just the same as Spot and Darcy's, but on the other side where he and Jim, the ranch hand who had been working the land and the cattle beside Fletcher's father for as long as Fletch could remember, slept at night. It irked Marta that he insisted on moving out there after the first week or so, but he had to. He wanted his family, but having their happily ever afters shoved in his face every minute of every day. He needed that time away from them.

She sat up again, coughing a bit. "You don't live here?"

He sucked in a deep breath and held it. Between the amount of words the explanation would take and how little he wanted her to know that he went running after Marta and Spot because he was depressed and lonely in New York, and now he was depressed and lonely here, he knew it would be hard to get out. "It's hhhhhere, just not in the hhhouse." Another deep breath and he raised his eyes from the roof of his cabin. Wishing he was there instead of with her wouldn't fix anything between them. "This wwwwas mmmmmy room. I wwwwwanted ow-out." He wandered back over and flopped down into the chair again. "Nnnnnneeded to be….'llllllone."

She laughed, but it sounded somehow more like a sob. "You hate being alone. You always hated it."

He nodded sheepishly. "Yeah."

"You need them, Eli," she whispered. "Hold them close. Don't run away from them." She sniffled. "You don't need me." He jolted upright, staring at her wide-eyed. "You need to let me go so that you can find someone….someone who deserves someone as wonderful as you are." A tiny sob escaped her, followed by a stronger cough. "Run away from me. You can't love anyone else while you wait for me."

"Jo," he pleaded, trying to take her hand, but she pulled it away.

"No," she yelped. "Go. Don't come up here again, Eli. Not to check on me. Not to bring me books. Run away. I'll be out of your life soon enough. Gordon will come and take me back home." He face hardened, her tears evaporating at the sound of her husband's name falling from her lips. "He always pulls me back." She turned her eyes back to him, but all the warmth was gone. They were dull and flat as coal. "Don't let me do the same to you." He stood, feeling like he couldn't make his muscles that worked so fluidly earlier, function. His motions were jerking and mechanical as he made his way to the door.

Before he left though, he turned to her, 'I'll go, but only because you asked. If he shows up here, I won't let him take you. You deserve so much more than being jerked around. You deserve Mr. Darcy and Heathcliff, Mr. Rochester and Levin. You deserve Romeo. Don't settle for anything less.' He couldn't look her in the eye as he finished the last few signs, and shoved his hands in his pockets when he was done, leaving the room just like she asked. Her rough sobs followed him down the stairs. He ignored Will's cries for him to wait as he grabbed the tools and hauled himself up onto a wagon, driving the horses out to the border of the property to work in peace, refusing to obey any of JoAnna's demands.


	11. Chapter 11

Every time she woke up, she watched for Spot to pass by like he did that first morning, but he stayed away. She could hear him downstairs in the kitchen, banging around, cursing, talking too loudly with the others as he tried to convince them that he was fine. They were talking about him in the hallway outside her door more and more often. His words didn't cover for how oddly he was acting.

As always, he refused, even subconsciously, to make anything easy, so she took matters into her own hands. Her legs shook and her hands gripped the railing on the wall tightly as she slowly made her way down. The house was quiet except for Spot dropping spoons and cups and cursing. Everyone was still asleep. His muttering led her to the kitchen and she watched him from the doorway as he tried to make coffee. She never thought she'd see the great Spot Conlon bested by anything, let alone a coffee pot. Another time, that might have made her laugh, but she was barely still upright. Her feet were freezing and her stomach was cramping. The wood of the doorframe was slick from her sweating palms, but it was all she had to hold onto. Her palms squealed as she tried to control her fall, dropping gently onto her knees. The thud startled him and the tin coffee pot hit the floor. "Shit!" he hissed, kicking it to the side. He took a good look at her and his eyes, the ones that made her think of ice when she first saw him, widened. "I'ma get Darcy. You don't look so good." He went to go around her, then stopped and seemed to think better of it, stepping behind her. His hands were still cold as they reached under her arms and hauled her to her feet, but gentle as he set her in a chair. He disappeared but came back a moment later and wrapped a blanket around her. "Wait here. I'll run to my place, Darcy oughta be up by now." He went for the back door.

"Wait," Jo called, and he stepped back into the doorway. Her voice was stronger, but still faint and reedy. "I need to talk to you."

He shifted from foot to foot and rubbed his palms against his pant legs, getting more and more fidgety the longer she sat in silence, glaring across the room at him. "Trout...Eli…he sounds good, don't he? Your aunt sat with him, practicing with him until he could do it. Him saying more than a word or two at a time, it's a miracle."

If only their history started like this, maybe they wouldn't have ended up where they did, always at war. But they didn't. Spot Conlon and JoAnna Witten we're at odds from the very first moment. Trout was recovering from his time in the jail cell in an attic bedroom above the school with his arm in a heavy cast. He'd written out a few notes and sent JoAnna to the Lower East to find Racetrack to take her to Marta. She and Race were fast friends, joking and laughing the whole way across the bridge, until suddenly Race wasn't at her side anymore. He was being held up against a light post by a skinny kid whose hat was pulled low over his eyes, pressing a cane across Racetrack's chest.

"Spot, we was just coming to see you," Race stuttered.

"Funny that you is walking into Brooklyn when I sent word ahead that I was coming to see you," Spot growled with an extra jerk on the cane.

JoAnna watched the boys frozen in place and trembling in fear. She opened her purse and pulled out the notepad, feeling the strength of his words seeping into her fingers, like she always had from Jane Austen and The Bronte's and Kipling. With a deep breath and a swell of anger and courage like she'd never known inside of her she yelled, "Put him down!" stomping her foot. "Trout said to stop being an asshole and talk to me."

He dropped Race and stepped up to her, too close to her. Her nose was inches away from his shoulder and she could barely see past him. "What the hell do you know about Trout?"

She glared back at him, hoping she could create anywhere near the kind of fear and ice in him that he was in her. "He's tall, has black hair and eyes so blue they look like something out of a fairy story. He talks with his hands and lives at 61 Poplar Street, Brooklyn where the house manager's name is Marta Gatcyk. You're Spot Conlon and she raised both of you. Is that proof enough?" He glared at her through narrowed eyes.

"You said her name right," he said quietly, probing her with his glasslike eyes. Every muscle in her body was taut as she tried to keep herself from trembling. His long, slender hand darted out and latched onto her wrist, squeezing tightly like a vice. She resisted the urge to cry out. "Take me to him. Now."

She clenched her teeth together to keep herself from crying as he twisted his grip, ripping painfully against her soft skin. "I promised I'd go to Marta first," she gritted, trying to match his tone and speed, glaring into his cold eyes. The fire she felt was getting more real by the second. "You're hurting me." His eyes snapped to her other hand and he swiped for the book, but she moved it away. "Not till we get to Marta," she snapped. She wasn't going to give in to him. Not now. She could feel Racetrack watching her with wide eyes. "Shall we Race?" They walked away from Spot, and her hands shook more with every step.

He held his elbow out for her to take. She could barely step, her legs were shaking so hard. "I'm not sure if you got his respect or just made an enemy." She took a deep breath, trying to ready herself for another Spot Conlon experience. She'd never felt anything like that surge. Maybe she wasn't as weak and silly as she thought.

At twenty-one, she knew exactly how weak and silly she was, but she still had to stand up to Brooklyn himself. She couldn't take Eli piling gifts next to her bed and watching her, waiting for her to be a giddy fifteen year old again. His shining hope, always there, always waiting to catch a glimpse of a girl who just wasn't there anymore was what made her tell him to leave her be. It was true, Gordon would come for her, he always did. He'd get lonely, run out of girls to flirt with, run out of clean shirts, or just get tired of eating nothing but pancakes and would track her down and twist her mind until she thought it was all her fault and she somehow owed it to him to go back. When he was gone, she could see how ridiculous he was, but he was just so good at pulling her strings like a puppet. Gordon's manipulation was what made Eli so comforting. It physically hurt her to ask him not to come back to the room upstairs, but everything in her wanted to be truthful with him and she couldn't be until Spot came clean. She couldn't be the one who outed Spot, only he could do that. "You know that's not what I want to talk to you about," she gritted. "I don't know why I came here, but I know that if I look at him, I'm going to tell him. I never lied to him."

"You never lied," he chuckled mirthlessly, his voice easily taking on the snark and cruelty that she was used to hearing from him. It was comforting, finally something that made sense. This kind, joking Spot that she'd seen since the social made her feel like her world was at an angle. Everything made less sense if Spot Conlon was a nice guy. "Except that time you told him you was getting on a boat with ya mother and instead you bought train tickets," he sneered.

"That's a shit answer and you know it," she said flatly, refusing to play the weak damsel role he wanted to put her in. "He thinks I abandoned him, because of you." She crossed her arms, and smiled a pinched, cruel smirk. He took a step back; Spot always brought out the best of her worst. "He's by my side, not showing me anything but kindness even though I basically ripped his heart out and served it to him on a platter six years later by showing up married while you're acting like a cockroach, scuttling away. Why didn't you give it to him? It's the only thing I ever asked of you!"

He stared at her cooly, before he started to pace, that restless animal nature that was mellowing with age, but would never be gone taking hold as he thought back to his old self. "I had two people that never wronged me. Two. In all the world, and you was trying to take one of them away. If he saw it he would have gone, he wouldn't have thought twice before packing his shit and running to meet you. I always made sure he felt like he needed me, but he didn't. I couldn't let go of the only friend I ever really had. Friends don't come easy when you's like me. I was…"

"A spoiled, selfish brat?" she interrupted, reminding him of what he once called her.

"Yeah," he admitted, "but I ain't that guy no more." He looked at her and the sincerity on his angular face was jarring, but she wasn't rattled.

Her eyes narrowed and looked back at him pityingly, knowing it would dig into him. "Yes, you are, or you would have come clean. Tell him the truth."

"I can't!" he snarled. "I still need him and he needs us!"

"You can and you will, because I won't lie to him. I have my own demons to deal with. Yours are not my problem."

He tried for one of his old icy glares, but couldn't muster it. The scar on his forehead wrinkled as he floundered for some sense of control, the only way he knew how. "You weren't supposed to go without him! You was supposed to get on the damn boat with ya mother!"

He forgot that, with Gordon, she was a master at taking that particular line of verbal attack. She wouldn't take it from him, too. "And you were supposed to be his friend!" A long series of heavy, wet coughs ripped through her again, leaving her panting and gagging. When she recovered her breath and sat up, he was staring at the doorway, stricken.

Marta's eyes were golden and smoldering. "I've been trying to figure it out since we were at Flaherty's, rolling it around in my head over and over and over," she whispered in that quiet, low voice that she'd honed over the fifteen years she spent lording over the boys of Brooklyn. He cowered like the sniveling weasel he was acting like. "Something about it felt so wrong, but I couldn't put my finger on it." She breathed out harshly and gave Jo a long, sad look before she admitted, "I didn't want to put my finger on it." Spot looked like he wanted to melt into the woodwork under her glare. "You knew." She glared directly into his eye and he squirmed and tried to avoid it, but nodded eventually.

"I knew," he murmured. "I saw her that night. I have the notebook…and the ticket. In my bedroom."

Marta's eyes bulged as her face went so white that even her freckles seemed pale. "And all this time you just watched him suffer? You sat there by his side while _that woman_ was screaming at him and threatening him and didn't say anything?" Jo smiled proudly inside at the dripping disdain with which Marta treated her mother. It was the same way her mother had always treated her. He shook his head, shuffling his boots against the floorboards. Jo lowered her spinning head to rest on her forearm. "And he still doesn't know?" He shook his head again, flinching away from her as she clenched and unclenched her fist. Jo was feeling woozy and sick, but was determined to see the end of the showdown. "Get your ass to work before I personally remove your teeth from your head," Marta growled. "Don't show up for supper tonight." Her throaty voice cracked and she gave him a petulant shove. "I messed up somewhere along the line. The kid I raised wouldn't do that to his friend, his brother." Her cheeks were red as if he'd slapped her. "I can't even look at you. I knew you were a shit to other people, but you always tried to treat me decent and I thought you did him too, but I was wrong. Get out of my home and don't come back in until I say you can." Jo was almost too tired to hold her eyes open anymore, but she needed to keep watching Marta, who shoved Spot roughly out the door and covered her face with her hands, breathing deeply. Jo watched as long as she could, until her heavy eyelids wouldn't stay open anymore. She'd forgotten how nice it was to have someone on her side, in her corner, and Marta was the best warrior she'd ever known.


	12. Chapter 12

Days passed, but Jo stayed in bed. She wanted to see Eli. She liked the way that all of the guilt and fear went away when he was there, but she didn't let herself ask for him. He chased away all of those bad feelings, but they came rushing back, ten times as vile and fierce, the moment he had to leave. She knew it hurt him when she told him to go, but it hurt her to let him stay and not tell him that she waited until the train was moving, she climbed on crates and tried to sneak into a boy's Lodging house, that she walked to Brooklyn in the middle of the night and she did it all for him. At least with Gordon she knew where she stood and the nauseating voices in her head all were in agreement that he was awful, but he was as much as she deserved after what she did. When Eli walked out of her room after she sent him away, those voices all screamed at once and all had different things to say. She needed Gordon. Her life meant nothing without him. Her body ached and her head hurt from it all. She hated him, but needed him. A knock pulled her out of the tempest. "Hey Doll," Darcy said, entering the room with Clarice clinging to her skirt, "brought you some supper."

The smell turned her stomach. "I'm not hungry," she mumbled, burrowing deeper into the quilt.

"I know you're not," Darcy answered, setting the tray down and moving the armchair closer to the bed. "Everything hurts and your heart is tied in knots. Bad men are like opium; it hurts to get them out of your system. You want to beg his forgiveness and stab him in the eye with a butter knife all at the same time. You're not sure what to believe, those brief times when he loves you more than anything, and you are his world and the sun can only shine when you're happy, or the days when you don't exist, you're just a ghost haunting your own home and you feel like you will actually die if he doesn't look at you. When he does, it feels like your world comes to life, but then you notice that look in his eye and you wish you were already dead. Because its the other kind of day. The day that you can't move from where you landed on the floor after the last hit, where you have to scrub your own blood out of the carpets or floorboards. Where you have to try to mend clothes that have already been ripped and repaired so many times that its impossible to hide the stitches anymore. Those are the days where you know you'd be better off dead than living another moment in the hell he's built for you, but you're too afraid of what will happen if he comes home and finds you trying to off yourself to do it." JoAnna sat up, her face a muddle of anger, hurt and fear, and raw pain. Darcy's cool green eyes met with her's, "Yeah, I know all about why you're not hungry, but your body is healing and needs food to do that. So, please try."

The tiny blond started to stand, but Jo reached out and grabbed her wrist. "Thank you." Her hand slid down to Darcy's hand and she squeezed. "You do know; I can see it. So, why are you still here?"

Darcy laughed a bit bitterly, "You think its Spot who did that to me?" She shook her head and pulled Clarice into her lap. "Spot helped me save myself, let me know that I'd make it without…him…the other guy." She watched Jo process that, "You're surprised."

"I never knew Spot to care that much about the needs of anyone but himself."

Darcy raised a transparent eyebrow and her face softened. "I know exactly who my husband is and most of who he was then. I like to think I saved him as much as he saved me. It was my job to strip him down to the raw nerve so that Mick could build him back up into a monster, but I fell in love with him instead. Marta and I, and we built him back up to be a person He's not perfect, but he's a good man and he'd never hurt us." She looked down and smiled at Clarice, who smiled back at Jo with the same steely blue eyes as her father. It made her shiver to see those eyes that patronized and ridiculed her at every turn and then betrayed her smiling back at her. "Right?" The four year old nodded resolutely. The anger and bitterness was still festering in Jo's mind. "He does stupid shit…often. And you're right, he thinks of himself first, because for most of his life he believed he was alone in the world."

"That doesn't excuse what he did," she snapped. "I had no clue what I was doing, I needed Eli! I had a head full of bullshit and romantic lies. Gordon wasn't the first one who saw it, he was just the first one who made an honest woman out of me after he took advantage of how stupid I was!" she was shrieking, getting paler by the minute.

Darcy's voice stayed low and calm, like she was talking to a feral animal. She never let Jo ruffle her. "You're right. It was wrong, and you have every right to be mad at him. I am and Marta is. I was probably never as innocent as you were, I got the stars kicked out of my eyes pretty young with Mick being around, but I still can't imagine being stood up at the train station by a boy I loved. Trout was left suffering alone too." She looked up curious as to how Jo would react to remembering that there were two victims here. Jo's deep brown eyes widened. "I wasn't around then, it was more than a year later that I met them, but Trout was always sad, you could always feel it, behind everything else that he did, like everything else was a little more reserved because some of him was still mourning. There's never been anyone else, and not for lack of trying. Racetrack apparently set him up with half the single girls in Manhattan."

Jo laughed, "Racetrack, there's a name I haven't heard in awhile." She could still picture him in her mind, standing at the boxing ring joking with a boy in a cowboy hat. He was short, had on the most obnoxious green, yellow and black plaid vest she'd ever seen and had a cigar in his front pocket. They talked more strangely than Cici did when she let herself lapse into her snappy Brooklyn drawl and it was fascinating to listen to. Not at all how she imagined Trout's voice. She cleared her throat when they didn't acknowledge her, but they were too busy throwing good natured insults and threats that made no sense to hear her. They both had silly grins on their faces and their voices got louder as their claims got more ridiculous. She cleared her throat again, more loudly and obviously, but still they didn't notice her. In the few days she'd spent with Trout she felt more acknowledged than she had since she outgrew her last nanny. He listened to every word she said and every emotion that flickered across her face. He sent her to find his friends and, gosh darn it, she was going to repay that favor and make sure he was heard. "Excuse me!" she yelled, probably a lot louder than she needed to.

The boys looked over at her, shocked, before the cowboy's mouth curled into a wolfish smirk. "Buy a pape, Miss? Page six is full of good gossip, today." He was smooth, just like Trout warned her. "Pretty girl like you needs to know who's who and what's what." Her cheeks heated at the compliment. Despite her dark hair that fell down her back in waves like a waterfall of bittersweet chocolate and her ebony eyes, her personality was always what got talked about, and not in a good way. She was too strange to be told anything other than that she would soon be eligible to marry and would be a catch because of her family.

She opened the frame clasp on her little beaded handbag that hung from a chain around her wrist and pulled out a nickel. Trout said that if she helped them with their papers they would be more willing to help her. "You are Jack, right? He said you'd be the fool in the cowboy hat and bandana who would try to charm your way under my skirt?" His smile was a bit charming and roguish, but his charisma intimidated her more than beguiled her. She didn't realize that she'd just insulted him, or that maybe she wasn't meant to repeat that part.

Jack blushed and rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly, while his friend sniggered. "Yeah, but I'm spoken for; your skirt is safe from me."

"I need to find Racetrack. That's you, isn't it?" He took a step back, ready to run. She pulled out the little notepad and Race's eye widened as the tablet came into view and a small gasp came out of him as he recognized it. She held his gaze while she flipped to the right page and handed it over for him to read Trout's note asking him to chaperone her to Brooklyn.

Race thought about it, raising an eyebrow at Jack who shrugged his shoulders. "Well, Jo, we better make like trees and leaf if we's gonna get back before dark." She tucked the little book back into her handbag and clicked the clasp closed. "See ya, Cowboy."

Jack winked at JoAnna. "Say hey to the big guy for me."

Jo and a Race headed towards the bridge in silence, until Jo couldn't take it anymore. "You know, you're awful quiet", she said.

He looked over at her with a smirk and a waggle of his eyebrows, "Speak for yourself, a stiff breeze is louder than you was talking back there."

She grinned. His tongue was quick and she liked it. "I just mean, the way Trout described you, it sounded like you could power all the electric lights in Manhattan if you were hooked up to a windmill."

He stared at her for a moment, obviously trying to figure her out, before a crooked smile showed on his face. "You's a quick one." He adjusted the papers under his arm and called out a few headlines, selling a few more as they walked. "But do you know why fish sing off key?" She stared at him blankly, not sure where he was going with this question. "Because you can't tuna fish." The old joke nearly made her smile.

Darcy chuckled and settled back into the chair, holding Clarice close and smoothing the child's blonde hair. "I only met him once, and just for a moment, but I feel like I know him from the stories."

Jo reached forward and took Darcy's petite hand in hers. "I haven't had a friend in a long time, since…" She swallowed loudly and tried to chase the memories from her mind. She hated when Wichita came up. Nothing good came of her time in Wichita, and if she had a way to get back there, she'd burn the place to the ground. If she had when she'd gotten the chance, maybe she could have died in the fire…or at least escaped her current situation where her husband loved to make her need him and the love of her life was dangling in front of her face like a carrot in front of a plow horse. "Since before I met Gordon. Its nice."

Darcy smiled and placed her other hand on top of Jo's, "You know the right people, and we'll help you along all we can." She nearly cried at Darcy's choice of words. Marta said the same thing to her the day they met at the Brooklyn Lodging House.

"If you get lost, find a newsie and tell them you're looking for Racetrack; they'll help you along. You've got friends now, Jo. It's ok to ask them to help you."

"But I don't know them." Her dark eyes were wide like saucers, and she looked like she might cry at any moment.

Marta smiled wide and honest and ran her hand down Jo's silky hair. "You know me. You know Race and Trout…"

"And Jack."

Marta's eyes narrowed. She adored Jack Kelly, but a sweet girl like a JoAnna would stand no chance against him. Marta loved charming charismatic boys back in her day, her Scatter was much like Jack Kelly, but boys like him were trouble. Just like she liked them. "Watch out for that one, he's slick as snot," Marta warned, poking her finger in Jo's face. "Don't let him get those lips on you; you don't know where else they've been." Her face softened, and she put her hands on Jo's upper arms, squeezing her encouragingly. "You know the right people and knowing the right people is everything when you're just starting out in New York. Trust me, I know better than most on that one. I wasn't much younger than you when I went out on my own and fell in with this lot. Don't worry, you're a big girl. You can do this."

Darcy squeezed her hand, bringing her back to the present, but with the same burst of courage in her heart that let her walk herself all the way home from Brooklyn that day warming what was cold and dead. "Most of this fight is yours. We can't fight it for you…" She grinned and winked one of her watercolor green eyes, "though Marta will try. You're going to have to be strong and trust your gut. Your head and your heart aren't very reliable right now, but your gut will never lie to you." She stood up, and started to pull Clarice along behind her.

Eli said she deserved all of her favorite men from literature. Her gut told her that was a good place to start. Books and fairy tales were her first loves, her first escape from the dreary, prim life her parents set for her. Maybe, she thought, it was best to start back at the beginning, with something she loved. "Wait," Jo croaked. Mother and daughter stopped, looking back at her expectantly. She tried to smile, knowing it was shaky and sad. "Buttercup, will you bring your book? I think maybe The Little Mermaid is just what I need right now. Would you like to read it with me?" Clairey's eyes lit up and she took off running.

Darcy chuckled knowingly and left the girl's to their fairy tales. They cuddled under Jo's blankets the rest of the day, reading until they both fell sound asleep with the book spread across their laps.


	13. Chapter 13

The men were busy filling the loft with hay when Jesse leaned out the loft door and yelled, "Look Pa! Horses!" Two horses approached from town, and Fletcher's normal, lazy smile tightened into a thin line. Sheriff Cruz rode up, followed by a glowering Gordon Flaherty. Spot and Darcy came out onto the porch as well, both looking grim and worried. Eli's body hummed with nervous energy. In his experience, nothing good came along with Gordon. Before the two riders could dismount, Spot and Fletcher were right behind Eli, flanking him. "Manuel, can I help you?" Fletcher asked calmly.

"Morning, Fletch," Cruz greeted tightly. "The doctor told Flaherty that his wife might be here and he insisted that I ride out with him to retrieve her."

Fletch drew in a long breath and blew it out, stuffing one hand in his pocket, but resting the other on Eli's broad shoulder. "Will, Jesse, come hold these horses," he drawled. The boys obeyed and the two men stepped towards the trio who all stood with their feet set and their arms crossed over their chests. "JoAnna is here, recuperating. Flaherty turned her out while she was sick. She's not going anywhere with him. She's staying right where she is until she's well enough to make decisions for herself."

"She's my wife!" Gordon snapped, "Only I get to say where she goes or doesn't."

Eli stepped into him, right into his personal space, taking a play from Marta's favorite moves back when she was Kisser and bossed fifty boys around like it was her job. "Back off," he warned.

"You back off, she's not yours, remember? You have no right to keep me from her." He bravely shoved Eli back, but barely moved him.

"I w-won't lllll-llllet you hurt her."

Gordon chuckled, low and patronizing in his throat before letting out a barrage or stuttered half syllables with a mockingly stupid smile on his face, like he knew exactly which buttons to push. Spot sidestepped over behind Gordon and stared hard at his old friend.

"Both of you knock it off and take a step back or I'll cuff you both and take you back to town to cool off in the lock up," Cruz warned, but sent an apologetic look Eli's way. Trout looked down at the sheriff's belt and saw the shackles there. His throat nearly closed at that moment and he swallowed loudly. He could still vividly remember crawling to his knees, still cradling his limp, useless arm to his chest. A heavy hand clamped down on the shoulder keeping the broken arm attached to Trout's body. He held in the groan and wobbled his way out the door, into the waiting arms of the New York Police where he was shoved to the ground and the officers feet. He couldn't fight anymore. It hurt too much to move. He was having hard time holding back from throwing up on the officer's boots after the impact with the ground jarred his broken bones again. He lay still while they cuffed his left hand, but the second the officer touched his right arm, some sort of instinct kicked in and his shackled left hand flew out, connecting with an officer's leg. That was the last thing he remembered. He took a club to the back of the head, was cuffed and thrown in the wagon that set off moments later, full of newsboys, for the city lockup to wait until morning for arraignment.

Spot's voice cut through the pain as he ran his hand up and down his long since healed forearm. "Don't give Cruz a reason, Trout. Don't make him cuff you. Flaherty ain't worth it," Spot warned.

He shook out his arm, testing the strength of his fist a few times. "Shhhhhe is," he answered, not unlocking his eyes from Gordon's washed out ones.

Spot scoffed. "You wanna stay here and protect her from him or look out at her from a cell? Think about it Trout, think with ya head, not ya heart!" It was always Spot's biggest problem with him. Emotion was weakness, and Trout was a big sap. For years as kids, those words were snapped at Trout.

"I ssssss'ay," he answered through teeth clenched so hard his jaw hurt as JoAnna burst out the door with Clarice in her arms. Eli started forward in shock and everything started happening sickeningly fast. Marta caught JoAnna and kept her from running off the porch and began to murmur gently in her ear while Jo cried out, wanting to know what was happening. Eli's startled step spooked Gordon who threw a sucker punch that caught Trout in the Adam's Apple and he fell to his knees gasping for air. Next thing he knew, he was on his face in the dirt with his right arm wrenched behind his back and Gordon's bony knee between his shoulder blades. He felt a pop in his shoulder and panic flooded him like it did when he was being cuffed all those years ago. He reared back, throwing Gordon to the ground behind him, where Spot got a hold of him and held him back. He watched from his knees until he was sure that Gordon was contained and then he slumped down and held his arm, it hadn't hurt this bad since the original injury. He peeked up at JoAnna through his eyelashes, panting and was surprised to see her staring back at him with her heart in her eyes. Fletcher came up to his left and tried to help him, but he shook him of and gritted, "I'm fine," through this teeth as he, slowly got up off the ground. His voice was strange sounding from the blow to his voice box and his eyes didn't leave hers and she nodded before she looked back at her husband. Fletcher's hand wrapped around his bicep and he glared down at it and back at the Cowboy.

"You're hurt, don't go doing nothing stupid now. Easy." Fletcher's brown eyes stared him down with intense calm and put out the fire raging in him. He nodded and took a deep breath, but Fletch's hand didn't move. Instead of feeling held back, he felt comforted, like someone was on his side.

Spot shoved Gordon roughly at Cruz and the sheriff held onto him and tried to move him back to his horse. "He came at me first! You saw him!" When he wasn't getting his way. He started yelling to JoAnna in a pitiful way. "Come home with me, Dove," he pleaded, fighting against the sheriff. "I'm sorry, you just get me so crazy sometimes and that letter and your book got me so jealous! You do that to me! You drive me out of my mind and make me do crazy things. I can't live without you. I'll die if you don't come home. Do you want me to kill myself?" She stared at him, not allowing the mask of blankness to fall and let him see the scramble of emotions that was happening in her head. She looked down at Clarice, who reached up and took her hand with a scared smile.

"Go home, Gordon," she said in a thready whisper, not raising her head. "We both know that you won't even put a bullet in the gun before you hold it to your head to scare me into staying. Its not the first time you've done it." She looked up, tears running down her face, "But it's the last. Sheriff Cruz, please take my husband home and make sure he understands what will happen if he trespasses on this property again."

Gordon laughed hysterically and pulled away from Cruz. "You're joking, right? You're leaving me for him?" He flung his arm out towards Trout. Fletcher's hand tightened on his arm as Gordon rushed them. He couldn't take his eyes off of JoAnna. She scowled at him and turned into Marta, who wrapped her arms protectively around her back and glared at him. "You really are crazy, you know that? You're going to give up the life that we have for an idiot who belongs in an asylum with all the other rejects and retards. What kind of life are you going to have, JoAnna? He's an animal."

"You are the only animal here," Jo answered in a shaking voice. "I'm not leaving you for him." Trout's heart sank and he had to force himself to keep standing there. "I'm leaving you for me. I always thought you gave me butterflies in my stomach like he did," she turned and faced Eli, smiling at him softly and sadly as she remembered the butterflies he used to unleash in her stomach, "but they weren't butterflies." Her eyes narrowed in disgust as she turned back to Gordon. She didn't pull away from Marta, she just untucked her face enough to be heard, drawing strength from Marta's warmth and comfort. "They were my guts trying to warn me about you, but they were the first thing I could feel after Wichita and I welcomed feeling anything." She didn't look at any of them, focusing her dark eyes on the pattern of Marta's dress. "My head says I can't make it on my own."

"You're not on your own, Jo," Marta growled over her head. "You never have to be alone again if you don't want to be."

Jo nodded, burrowing deeper into Marta's embrace. "It's what told me that the squirrelly feeling in my stomach was a good thing and that I should stick around with you. I needed a three year old tell me the difference. She said you were a bad man who made her tummy feel squirmy, yet she'll sit with him and fall asleep. You are a bad man. I know that now. My heart hasn't told me a single useful thing since I left New York. So, all I have left is my gut." She pulled away from Marta and set her glare on Gordon. "And you make my gut feel sick. Between my gut and Clarice's, I know I can't trust you. Go home and leave me alone."

"This ain't over, JoAnna!" Gordon yelled as Cruz escorted him away. "You watch! You'll come crawling back once he figures out what you did, what you are. If he doesn't, it won't be because he love you! Its because you're all he can get! Damaged goods!" The sheriff seemed to have reached his limit for Gordon's insults and clocked him in the temple with the butt of his rifle. He nodded at the Fletcher family and draped the small, annoying, semi-conscious man over his saddle and led him away.

The strange calm that JoAnna had managed to maintain crumble. She sank down to the porch and covered her face, sobbing loudly and painfully. "Talk to her," Fletcher whispered in his ear, gently pushing him forward as he released his arm. He walked like he was drunk, like his legs weighed too much to move across the yard and knelt in front of her on the steps. His heart ached as he watched her fall apart in front of him. She lay on the floor, sobbing and coughing in equal measures, with her arms wrapped over the top of her head.

He put his hand lightly on her arm and gently stroked up and down. "Jo," he whispered, his voice still rough from the hit to the throat. She looked up at him, and suddenly the despair that was there was gone. She shoved him back roughly, her brown eyes blazing like burning embers. She wasn't herself and he knew it, but that didn't make it hurt any less. He recognized the look in her eyes because he'd seen it in Spot's and even in his own many times. It was an empty but angry, hungry for a fight, desperate to feel anything but whatever has a hold of you kind of a look.

"How could you do that to me?" she screamed and shoved him again until he backed down the stairs. "You ruined everything! You sent that letter with Marta and made my world fall apart! Why couldn't you leave me alone? My life was awful but at least I didn't know it!"


	14. Chapter 14

Marta watched as Jo succumbed to all of the pain she'd been put through and took it out on the most innocent among them. All the manipulation and abuse finally taking its toll on her sweet spirit. While Jo, screamed from the top step, Eli just stood and took it, as if he was truly the one who committed all those crimes against her. Marta glared over at Spot. He looked on like a wide eyed child. He dragged his eyes to hers, both knowing that his day of reckoning had come. Both knowing that this might be the last they would see of the third member of their little clusterfuck family. Both knowing that he wouldn't come back if he left again.

Her hand covered her throat as she watched the dark-haired boy she raised try to keep from falling apart while the love of his life unravelled in front of him. His heart wouldn't be able to take losing her again. It would break him completely. He was crushed when they were separated the first time. Jo's mother booked passage to take her daughter abroad while the gossip among the hoity-toity types of Gramercy Park died down after Jo called her dinner partner a "spoiled milksop" during a dinner party. Until she told Gordon to go home and not come back, Marta had never been so proud of the meek, shy girl. Trout's face when he arrived back home at the Lodging House after all those months of being so happy and so well understood at the school squashed all other feelings, though. He turned down a scholarship to stay at the school as a student to come home to them, but he didn't seem at all happy to be home. His eyes pleaded with her for for some space to tend to his woulds before facing the boys…and Spot. Most of all Spot. Both boys were still raw from the argument they had at the party, and she could see that Trout was in no fit state to face his old friend yet, so she let him sit in her sitting room while she went about her duties. "Come sit with me, if you want. Show me how to talk to you like JoAnna while I make supper." She wondered how much that played into it. He'd spent the bulk of his time at the school able to say exactly what he thought with the signs they taught him, instead of struggling through, expression three words where he really wanted to say twenty. She wanted so bad for him to have that with them at the Lodging House. She always had. The scowl that crossed his face spoke volumes, though. He'd already asked Spot to learn and in true Spot Conlon form, he'd squelched the idea. Her hand clutched into a tight fist as Trout winced a bit at the sound of JoAnna's name. He touched his pocket. She nodded, "I'll keep him out." He nodded, propping his arm up on his knees, and rested his head on his cast. She smoothed his hair back, "I promise it won't hurt forever." How she wished she hadn't promised that in years to come. It would always hurt just a little.

She left him sitting on her floor and moved slowly to the kitchen to put some soaked peas into a pot to cook into soup. Once the fire was hot underneath them and they were starting to simmer, she started chopping onions and potatoes to go in to help stretch the soup to fill the bottomless pits that she fed nightly. The skins of the potatoes came off in delicate complete ribbons, piling up on the scoured tabletop like party streamers. The slam of the back door made her jump, cutting off her ribbon of potato skin early and nipping the knife into the flesh of her thumb. She stuck the offended digit in her mouth and ran out of the kitchen to catch Spot. "Stop right where you are, Spot Conlon!" She ordered as he prepared to climb the stairs to the bunk room. She could punch him in his smug, elfish face for wanting to add to Trout's misery.

"He's here," Spot gritted, turning to keep on his warpath. "Stack told me he came home and I got shit to say to him."

She grabbed his arm, feeling him stiffen at her touch. He hated being grabbed, and was just barely able to keep himself from shoving her hand off of him. "He's here, you're right. He's in my room and you're going to leave him alone."

"He owes me. . ."

"Jack shit, Spot," she answered in the low even voice that seemed to work best to get her way with the boys. "Trout owes you jack shit." She could practically feel the rage simmering under her touch, but she didn't pull away. Sometimes he needed that to know she was serious. "He gave Jo his notebook, I can't understand him with all his new signs and Jo's mother is taking her abroad in the morning. You are going to leave him be because I think he will snap if you go in there and poke at him. So, you are going to back the hell off. If he comes out, you're going to give him his space and if I catch you so much as skulking outside that door, you will find yourself without a bed for the night, you got me?"

He shook her off and gave her a glare, "Yeah, I gotcha." He turned back to the stairs and rolled his shoulders. "She hurt him?"

Marta sighed, "He's hurting, but I think more because there's nothing he can do to fix it. He gave her one of the two things he cares about in this world, so I don't think they parted badly, it just hurts to part before you're ready. She's all that's held him together while he's been away and now he has to pick up his pieces and learn to stitch himself back together."

Spot snorted and cracked his neck, the pops making her cringe and shiver. "Serves him right, getting messed up with someone he can't have. At least he chose right."

"Chose right?"

"Yeah. He chose us." He turned and sauntered out the front door, arrogant and self righteous. She watched him go with her mouth hanging open. The levels he would stoop to when threatened never ceased to surprise and disappoint her.

Just like now. She could hardly look at the man that smug boy became since he told her the truth. Eli glared up at Marta, seeing right through her disappointment to guilt she felt at having missed the clues all those years ago. She closed her eyes and covered her mouth with her hand. Darcy watched her carefully, pointedly refusing to give Spot her attention. "I d-d-d-didn't ssssssssssend it." Eli mumbled, wincing against the stuttered words. Gordon's insults opened the deepest wounds on his heart, and his pride was in tatters. How many different ways could one man be humiliated in a single hour? It took everything in him to keep speaking, to not shut down and go mute. "I thhhhhhrew it a-a-away. I was g-g-g-going to let you be. I d-d-didn't mmmmmmmmean for you to rrrrrread it, b-b-b-but I meant every wwwwwwwword. You buh-boh-brrrr-broke me; you t-t-t-took sssssomeone else with you."

JoAnna half ran half fell down the stairs, knocking him over, swatting and hitting wildly. "I waited for you! You were supposed to be there but you weren't because you have the worst taste in friends and you ARE loyal as a damn dog and twice as stupid because of it! Like an idiot, I trusted him because you did." He stopped trying to block her strikes and slaps and let her shove him as the words sunk in. "You had to show back up here with your stupid eyelashes, and your eyes that understand me when I don't understand myself, and your beautiful smile and your beautiful words and you ruined me! I can't pretend anymore!" He pulled her in tightly and held her to his chest, burying his face in her hair and tried to breathe normally while he processed all that she just yelled at him. She fought weakly for a few seconds before collapsing against him, sobbing even harder than before, and fisting his dirty, ripped shirt in her hand.

"You….you…w-w-w-w-w….." he couldn't get the words out. They were stuck in his head. He closed his eyes and breathed in the sweet scent of her hair. "Wa-way…."

"She waited," Spot croaked, finishing his word for him. "She wanted you there with her on the train. She bought you a ticket." His voice broke, and he held his hand out to Darcy. Relief washed over Marta. Finally, the dark cloud of his ages old lie would lift. The secret was killing her and making all of this so much worse on JoAnna.

She refused to soften the blow of his actions, stepping away from his hand as she murmured, "Tell him" Darcy murmured.

He nodded absently, looking haunted as he relayed what happened the night everything fell apart. "You was in Marta's room and she wouldn't let me talk to you, because I was gonna let you have it for what you said to me at the party. I woke up to Jo trying to climb the fire escape in the middle of the night and she told me to give you your book. Your words. She kept saying to make sure you got it first thing." Eli listened intently, but couldn't make himself meet Spot's eyes. They clung to one another. Each seeking comfort that the other wasn't able to give. He buried his nose in her hair and inhaled deeply as he grasped for a way to keep calm. "The ticket fell out on the bunk room floor and I panicked." Eli stood, pulling her along with him and gently tucked her back into Marta's embrace. Marta pleaded with him with her eyes as he pried JoAnna's hand open to release the handful of his shirt that she was clutching like it was the only thing holding her on earth. "Trout," Spot pleaded behind him. "Say something, please."

Eli stared up at her and her stomach coiled. Her arms pulled JoAnna in more tightly as his eyes wavered between pure rage and unspeakable pain. He stared at Marta and tried to gather his wits enough to ask, "D-d-did…you knnnnnnnow too?" His voice shook.

She groaned inwardly and pulled herself up to her full height without releasing JoAnna's still shaking body. "Only for the past day or two. Talk to him," she looked at him steadily, giving him permission to follow his gut even if it meant clocking Spot in front of everyone, "do what you have to do, and then we'll talk." She caressed his cheek with her hand, but he jerked away from it and turned to slowly go down the stairs.

"Why?" he growled, crossing his arms over his chest and standing over Spot. Spot might not be the skinny kid he was back in Brooklyn, but Trout still towered over him as she shrugged his shoulders and stared at his boots. Trout shoved him back, "Why?" he demanded, stepping right back into his personal space.

"You know why."

An animalistic growl ripped out of his throat. He hadn't made noises like that in years, he had words and could express himself, but this was too much. 'Go on!' he signed, using the old signs that he made up as a child, shoving his hands forward.

"Because I'm a god damned coward, that's why! That's what you want to hear, right?"

He opened his mouth to demand the truth, but couldn't muster the words. He tried and tried, but couldn't get more than a few syllables out. It was the last straw, he couldn't take anymore and he tackled Spot, throwing wild punches until his already sore arm couldn't draw back anymore. Spot scrambled away with an eye that was already swelling and a split and bleeding lip. Eli tucked his arm into his chest and cradling it. He slowly picked himself up off the ground and turned away from them, slowly staggering back to his cabin.

"Trout," Spot called after him, "you's hurt, let Darcy take a look atcha."

He stopped and stood still for a moment before shaking his head and walking away. He needed to be alone, he needed space to think. His best friend lied to him for years. His best friend knowingly cost him the love of his life. She was back now, but she was broken and fragile. Spot stepped forward, but Marta let loose a low growl. "Leave. Him. Alone." She drew in a slow breath and tried to keep herself from finishing what Eli started. "You've done enough here, Spot. Don't 'help' anymore." Darcy went to her house alone, and Marta pulled Jo inside, knowing that her husband would give Spot the compassion and fatherly guidance that he so desperately needed, but that she couldn't give. She couldn't even look at him.


	15. Chapter 15

Ten days had passed. He stayed away from the house, he ate in his cabin, he did his job, but he stayed away from all of them. He couldn't talk to them anyway, and he was afraid that he'd hurt Spot in front of the kids again. Late at night, Eli sat by the wood burning stove in the little three room he shared with Jim, picking at his ink stained fingers. The smudges of black imbedded in the groves of his fingers were familiar, and a reluctant smile tugged at his mouth. When he quit selling it took weeks for the layers upon layers to wash clean. Unlike the printers ink his hands were stained with as a newsboy, though, this was ink from hastily writing the letters that now glared at him from the table, letters that he either had to mail in the morning, or throw in the fire now. Removing himself, in his experience made things easier for everyone else involved. They all felt it. Even though he barely made eye contact with any of them, he could feel the way they sucked in a collective breath when he came in the room. He created that tension. It was familiar and gut wrenching to think that it was happening all over again.

He ran from his own family at seven years old after watching what he did to them. His presence, the way he was tore them apart and it was only after he left that they managed to piece themselves back together. He found that out the night of the Strike Rally at Irving Hall. It was the reason he got separated from Spot, why no one knew where he was. The moment he walked in the door of the hall with Spot ahead of him and the rest of the ranks of Brooklyn newsboys behind him, the pride and smug satisfaction of just being Brooklyn was swept out from under him as his eyes honed in on Racetrack Higgins talking to a kid who could have been is own mirror image. The kids hair was black and curly, though cleaner cut and more tamed than Trout ever kept him, and he was chatting with Race with as his bright cerulean blue eyes scanned the hall. Trout couldn't breath. The kid's clothes were store bought, first hand and he couldn't be anyone other than one of his own younger brothers.

Harvey stared back at him like he'd seen a ghost, and Trout supposed he had. None of them had seen him in eight years, but all the Cooper kids looked alike. They were apples off of the same tree. Brooklyn entered the theater with a cheer, leaving Harvey, Trout and Race standing in the lobby. Race questioned Trout silently and in return Trout signed 'brother.'

"Brothers? You never said nothing about no family, Trout."

"That's cause he ran like a coward in the middle of the night. Right, Eliot?" Harvey said his name like it was a curse, and Trout agreed. Eliot Cooper was a curse, that's why he ditched his own name at seven years old, trying to ditch the curse it seemed to carry.

"Nah," Race said, clapping his friend on the back, feeling how little he wanted to be standing there. "Trout's a good egg."

"Yeah, is that why Conlon leaves him with a babysitter? Mama couldn't ever leave him on his own because he beat the living daylights outta anyone who looked at him wrong. He's crazy, always has been!" Race flinched and jumped in front of Trout, but Trout didn't move to jump on the kid. He stood with his head down, his hands in his pockets. "See, you're afraid of what he'll do to me!"

"Everyone changes, right Trout?" Trout wasn't listening, he was shutting down inside his head. He never thought there was a possibility of meeting up with his brothers while selling papes. .

"That true, Eliot? You're a changed man? Gentle as a baby lamb?" Harvey mocked. Trout looked up at him through his eyelashes, glowering and then over to Race. Race brushed off his shoulder, telling him to let it go. He nodded slowly, but kept his shoulders tight to his ears and his hands in his pockets. He raised his eyes up to meet Race's, pleading for help. He didn't know how to do this.

Race answered the call with a wry grin as he clamped his teeth down on his cigar. "Eliot, huh? Damn, I owe Spot two bits now. I had ya pegged as a Joe or maybe Noah." Trout flipped him off offhandedly and pretended to stamp his forehead his forehead while Race snickered.

"What the hell was that?" Harvey asked.

"Ya brother, charming asshole that he is, made up that little gesture after someone told him a joke about all Italian men being named Tony because they stamp To NY on their foreheads when they get on the boat to come to America. So when he wants to talk about me, especially when he wants to tell me where I can stick my jokes, he stamps his forehead."

"Mama always wanted someone to teach him to talk with his hands." Harvey's voice was hushed and he looked at his older brother with something bordering on admiration. Race elbowed Trout and made a motion like he was writing.

 _I'm not crazy_ , he wrote and handed the note over.

Harvey looked the words but didn't read them, he was too in awe. "He can read and write too?"

"Of course he can read, he's a newsie." Race answered. Trout elbowed him and gestured to himself to say 'I'm right here.' He couldn't take much more of them talking about him like he wasn't there. "Sorry, Trout. You talk to him, Harvey." Just then the cheer went up as Spot, David and Jack took the stage. "I gotta get in there. Can you two do this without killing each other?"

The brother's nodded and Race looked sternly at Harvey. "If you value your life and the teeth in your jaw, do not call him stupid or crazy. Not just because he'll kill you and no one will be there to save you, but because he ain't."

"Some things don't change," Harvey answered with a grin.

They sat on a bench in the lobby catching up. "Mama and Papa will probably never move out of that flat. Mama wants to be there in case you ever try to come home. Every drunk that tries to sleep in the hallway she checks to make sure its not you. They want to know you're ok, Eliot."

Trout blushed and pulled his paper back out, _Call me Trout. Don't tell her you saw me. I'm never going back to that house._ He took the time to write every sentence with proper grammar, where he normally scribbled in words and phrases so as not to hold things up.

"Why? What happened? Were you just tired of being stuck in the house with Mama and the babies?"

He looked at his brother, and decided not to lie, hoping that knowing his reason would keep Harvey quiet. His throat itched at the thought of being trapped in that apartment while the other kids went out to play. It was his own fault, she warned him he wouldn't be able to go if he didn't stop fighting everyone who said anything about how he spoke, but the other kids were so mean and talked about him like he wasn't right there and couldn't hear their insults. _She was going to take me to an asylum so that the rest of you didn't have to put up with me anymore. I heard her and Papa talking and ran. Took care of the problem for them._ Harvey read it with a look of horror on his face as Medda started singing and Snyder walked into the lobby.

It was better for everyone. He found Spot and Marta and his family had four other kids to replace him. Maybe there was just only so much time that a family could take the extra burden of him and that limit was reached with the Fletchers, just like it was with the Coopers.

He didn't look up when Jim came in, too focused on the battle waging in his mind. When the calloused hand clapped him on the shoulder, he nearly jumped out of his skin. "Easy there, Slick. Si'down," Jim said. His voice was as gritty and grizzled as the rest of him. He plunked down in the chair next to Eli and picked the two envelopes up, reading over them slowly. "Time to go, eh?" Eli shrugged. "Yeah, Spot's been nervous as a laying hen, trying to catch a glimpse of you every morning. He figured you wouldn't stay long after all that came out." Eli snorted, slumping in his chair. The things Spot knew about him were right, but there were miles of things that Spot never bothered to know, yet still claimed they were friends. Jim chuckled. "And the missus was right about you sulking like a pigeon." They sat in silence for a moment before Jim shuffled the letters again. "Where is it you think you're going, now?" When he stepped off the train in Denver, he only ever intended to stay a few weeks with the Fletchers, just long enough to secure a job at the school in Colorado Springs. He got comfortable, but now that things were so uncomfortable on the ranch, it was feeling like a good time to send the school a letter to inquire if the position was still available. "Back to New York? Or on to Colorado Springs, huh?" The man could talk and pretend to carry on a full conversation without a single response from Eli, who wasn't speaking to anyone. He stayed away from the house except for a few moments after breakfast when Fletcher gave him his assignments for the day. Well, Clarice, of course didn't allow him to stay away from her, but she let him stay silent and acted as a reluctant interpreter when he needed it. "You know that you ain't gonna be happy no matter where you go unless you make peace with everyone, don'tcha? It will eat you alive."

Eli sighed and scrubbed at his hair. 'Can't stay here with her and not be with her. I can't do anything right.' He didn't even care that Jim didn't understand. Putting those words out into the open, even if they were in signs that no one but a toddler understood. 'When I sign, she asks me to speak. When I speak, she misses sign. She wants me to sit with her, but she doesn't want me there anymore. I don't know what to do. Everything is wrong and she didn't tell me about the ticket. Spot lied to me and they'll all protect him. Marta always does and the rest of them have known him longer. I can't stay and play nice with him when I just want to kill him for what he did. She was my chance to be happy and he took it away.' Ignoring the thoughts of all he would have regretted if he had gone with Jo, because Spot was right, he wouldn't have thought twice, was hard.

She was as naive as they came back then, when he woke up at the school for the first time, broken, weak and sickly, she smiled at him and apologized for the charred toast she brought him. He could hear her quiet murmur of a voice, "I'm afraid you're stuck with me because I'm just a nuisance everywhere else. I've broken dishes, I burnt your trousers trying to iron them and I'm quite positive that the staff is cursing Cici for letting me anywhere near this place. I don't know what I'm doing at all, so they've stuck you with me just to keep me out of the way. I'm quite useless." The shame in her voice made his stomach hurt. It wasn't her fault that all she was raised to do was be pretty and marry well. She'd never been allowed to cook or clean more than to pick up her toys. He helped her learn some independence in the weeks that followed, but just enough to not be in the way. Their life would have been hard with him coaxing her along through everything. And if he went with her, Marta and Spot might not have made it out of New York. Spot, in the deranged state he was in, wasn't going to save Marta. He couldn't even look into the windows. Marta would have died in that horrible building, and Spot would have ended up either locked up or dead in the street shortly after. He snorted, maybe that would have been better. There would have been no secret in the first place…but those thoughts spurned a deep ache inside of him. He didn't wish Spot harm. He just needed to get away from him.

"You know they care about you, Boy. If you run from them, you're just running from yourself. And wherever you go, you'll still be there."

Eli stood abruptly, his chair scraping on the floor. 'Then they should stop. Loving me has never done anyone any good.' If they weren't going to be smart enough to leave him be when he was ruining the happiness they all found here, then he'd make sure to get out before they completely fell apart because of him. He was just meant to be alone, and as much as he hated being lonely, it was better for everyone else.

"Eli," Jim rumbled, stopping him as he went to his room. "It's got to be killing you that she said she didn't leave him for you…but it's the way it has to be. She can't love anyone until she knows who she is; it would be just as much of a lie as the one Spot's been living all this time. She left to keep the last bits of herself alive, in hope that she could love you again someday. You'll never know if you leave."

Eli sighed and rested his head against the doorframe. 'Just once, I'd like to be someone's first choice.' He closed the door, knowing that he needed to get to town and mail that letter in the morning.

He stood outside the kitchen door, beckoning Clarice out when the boys ran out to do their morning chores the next day. He needed to ask her a favor, but waited until he was crouched on the milking stool, just at her level to do it. She glared at him. "I don't like this anymore," she whined. "I don't wanna talk for you!"

He slumped down, guilt weighing on him. 'I know, Buttercup,' he signed. 'I don't like it either. Please? For a candy?' She scowled, looking disturbingly like Spot. She was too little to understand that he couldn't fight the words out of the loud tangle in his brain. 'Please tell Fletcher.'

She humphed and her yellow blonde hair fell in her face. "Two candies," she bargained, narrowing her light eyes and glaring at him shrewdly.

He rested his elbows on his knees and dug his hands into his hair, ducking his head to hide his face. "D-d-d-d-d-…." He grunted in frustration and dropped his hands. "Duh…deh…." It was a single syllable, four letter word and he couldn't get it out. She was wrapped around him; hugging his head.

"Just one candy," she whispered. "Deal?" He nodded with his face flaming. Great, pitied by a toddler.

He detangled himself from her grip and gave her a half hearted smile. 'Tell Fletcher.'

"Ok." He stood and turned to leave the barn, but her arms wrapped around his leg. "You're coming back, right Uncle Eli?" His brow furrowed and his neck got uncomfortably hot. The letters feeling like they were catching fire in his pocket. He smiled again, but his face hurt from the effort. He tapped her nose with his index finger before drawing an x over his heart. He dropped the milk off in the kitchen without looking at anyone and hightailed it back outside.

Mr. Mason, the store owner greeted him like they were old friends before leaving him to his browsing. That was one of those things that he loved about Kiowa. He hadn't been around long, but Fletcher's family had and by being associated with them, he was just accepted as he was into the town fold. It only took one or two visits for them to know what to expect when it came to him talking. They smiled and they talked and no one batted an eyelash when he only spoke when he had something to say.

He stopped at the small selection of ladies items, picking up a bar of white soap tied with a yellow ribbon. Lily of the Valley. He sniffed it, selling fifteen year old JoAnna. It was what her mother bought her. He looked down at the pretty little parchment wrapped cakes and picked up a pink one. Turkish Rose. He smiled softly, remembering a fifteen year old JoAnna, puzzling over the water coming out of the taps at St. Xavier's being both cold and "funny smelling." She had no clue that the water for her baths in her Upper East Side home didn't come out of the pipes hot and smelling like roses. She didn't know that her maid, Cora, had to use a special heated tap and added rose oil and epsom salts into the hot water. She just thought that bath water came out hot and smelling like roses. Thinking of Cora would make her smile. Maybe she would remember that he didn't know he hurt her. He turned the little puck around in his hand a few times before handing it over to Mason and waving him over to the jars of penny candy. Mason was putting a scoop of gumdrops into a bag when Fletcher's voice drawled comfortably from the door, "You know that Darcy and Marta aren't going to want you giving the kids' candy."

Eli shrugged and signed, 'I promised.'

With his packages in his pockets, he walked past his boss and out into the dusty street, but Fletcher's hand on his shoulder stopped him. He wasn't ready to go back yet. "C'mon," Fletch said, "wagon's over this-a-way. We need to talk." The cowboy was the most serious Eli could ever remember seeing him and even though he was there to start planning his escape, he found himself afraid that Fletch was going to tell him to go ahead and leave.


	16. Chapter 16

He followed Fletcher and climbed up into the seat of the wagon, sitting as far away from his boss as he could. Fletch chirped to the horse and drove them out of town in silence that ate away at Eli's guts. He wanted to know why Fletch followed. He wanted to pour his heart out, but he knew that it was useless. The words that were so loud, pounding against his skull to try to get out would get tangled up before they ever made it to his mouth. "How long do you plan on shutting the rest of us out and fighting this fight alone in your head?" Eli looked away. He knew the honest, probing look that would be there if he looked at Fletch and it would just add to the noise in his head. "Contrary to what you've been telling yourself all your life, you are not better alone. You are not a burden, and its not all on you to make yourself heard. You have a family behind you."

Fletcher was wrong. When he was a small boy, his mother would take him when she walked the few blocks over from the family home in Queens to pick up finishing work from the sewing factory. She always stopped to smell the hothouse flowers outside of a certain shop. He pointed and hooted, trying in his own way to get her to tell him what they were called. He needed a single word and a little time to think and try to emulate it, but instead, she said, "Yes, Darling, the flowers smell so nice, don't they?" and then she took his hand and walked away. She loved him and she wanted to do right by him, but she didn't understand what he needed. When they arrived back at home, he climbed her kitchen shelves, pulling down her porcelain plates that were painted with tiny pink and blue flowers. He took them to her, showing her the flowers, begging her to say the word. But his noises and grunts didn't mean anything to her. "No, Eliot. It's not time to eat. Put it away." She wasn't listening! He pushed the dish in her face again and again until she was red in the face and near either to tears or to throttling him. "It's not suppertime, yet! Put it back!" Her voice was loud and frustrated but he was determined to make her understand. "Listen to Mama!"

He didn't put it away, as frustrated as she was, he was ten times more so. Shards of china flew as the plate hit the floor as he bellowed every little slight and grievance at her. He broke everything he could get his hands on. He fought and bit and kicked at her, letting her know just how angry he was that she wasn't enough, but nothing changed. Things just went on that way for two more years before he took off in the night. She told him, with nothing but her actions that it WAS his job to make sure he was easier to understand. No one was going to try to make it easy for him.

No one until Spot and Marta, and even they had their limits. Only Jo learned to speak to him in his language. Only Jo ever truly made him feel normal. And now she wanted nothing to do with him. 'I don't have a family,' he signed, not caring that it was bratty and petulant because Fletch wouldn't understand anyway.

"That's a load of horse shit and you know it. You came to us because Marta and Spot are your family, and you don't get to just waltz into and out of a family whenever you feel like it. That's not how it works. Not in my family. In my family we stick around."

Fletch understanding him didn't even phase him. His hands were signing almost before the last words were out of Fletcher's mouth. 'I'm supposed to just forgive him for what he did and pretend that nothing happened just because he and I grew up together? Pretend he didn't ruin my life and JoAnna's?'

The cowboy stared at him blankly for a moment before a sheepish smile spread across his face. "Too fast, I thought I had a handle on it, but I only got a few of those. Damn. You called my bluff."

Eli stared at him a moment before a sad chuckle bubbled out of him and he swiped his hand across his eyes before signing again but making sure to be slow and clear with them so Fletcher could follow. 'I didn't notice. I'm used to talking to you.' He paused, dropping all of the gusto. It felt good to talk to someone, it released a spillway in his brain and let him relax a bit. 'Who?'

"Jo does the teaching, Clarice does the enforcing. Little girl is just as much of a bully as her mama. She makes sure we practice."

'Good girl,' Eli praised with a grin. But then he paused. 'We?'

Fletch's grin broadened, "Everyone. Even Spot."

His stomach lurched and his head shook back and forth in protest. It didn't matter that he'd wanted it at one time, he never expected everyone to change for him. 'They don't have to do that.'

"Of course they don't. They want to. This shouldn't all be on you." He waited, driving on, but Eli didn't move except to run his hand up and down his bicep. "Oh, I see. You really think its all on you to talk to us, because it's your problem. That's why you want to run. A true family comes together and makes sacrifices, not because they have to but because they want to make life good for each other. We are all happy to try to make you comfortable. We are even happy to let the little blonde bull pup yap at us so that we do it right. If there's anywhere a man should be able to speak, its in his own home. That's where you should be comfortable."

'I'm comfortable talking,' he lied.

Fletcher gave him a withering look as he turned the wagon. Instead of heading down the lane between the pasture fences towards the ranch house, he turned and steered the wagon into a faint set of wagon tracks that led up and around the mesa. Again, they rode in silence for a bit, but it wasn't and nagging and weighty. The tracks went through the trees, taking them higher until they turned a corner and the flat top of the mesa came into view. It was a beautiful meadow. "Did Marta tell you that when she and I first met, Will wasn't talking?" Eli's eyebrows drew upward until they were almost in his hair. Will wasn't exactly chatty, he was downright stoic in comparison to Fletcher and Jesse, but he could gab with the rest when he wanted to. "The day his mama died, he clammed right on up. For the first month or two, he hardly acknowledged us. Then he started answering in nods and shrugs. And then Jesse appointed himself the designated speaker for both of them." He laughed, but it wasn't quite up to snuff with his normal, easy-going, loud, rolling laugh. "Until Marta and Spot came into our lives, that's just how it was. Jesse talked for both of them. I could never tell if they were chatting at night in bed or if Jesse just understood his brother that well. First day they met Marta, she looked at asked Will if Jess was his mouthpiece." The cowboy's love for Marta was palpable as he remembered and Eli had to hold himself still. "When Will nodded she smiled and told him that they liked loud mouth little brothers. She always made sure to give him options that he could choose between and he spoke to her before anyone else." He looked out over the waving grass of the meadow. "Spot didn't skip a beat either. Called him Blabbermouth every time he saw him. The two of them got further with him in four days than I did in almost a year, and I think that was because of you. They helped me bridge the gap, and now we're doing it for you. I'd leave you be if you didn't want to talk, because you'd decide that it was safe eventually and start up again, but I think you can't. Clarice thinks you can't. And it's not ok with me for you to be walled up inside of your own head with no one to talk to when your family could help you out. My family doesn't leave one of it's own out in the cold."

Something clamped down tightly in his chest and he wasn't sure whether he wanted to hug Fletcher or slug him; if he wanted to cry or laugh or just scream in frustration like he did when he was a child and his mother didn't understand. Fletch dropped the reins and climbed down, wading out into the tall grass. Trout tried to breathe, tried to contain whatever it was that was threatening to burst inside of him. He jumped down and followed Fletcher out into the meadow, looking at the cowboy's deep brown eyes as they stared out at the seemingly endless sea of grass. No matter how he tried, he couldn't see what they were looking at. He tapped Fletcher's elbow, 'It's beautiful.'

"That it is. This was my first wife's favorite spot on the whole property. It's the only place the cattle don't graze, and she'd finish her chores and disappear up here for hours before the boys were born." They walked together, the sweet smell of the grass and the clover wafting over them. The rustle of their bodies as they moved through the grass and the rattle of the wind in the Ponderosa pines eased Eli, the birdsong from the trees sang soprano and the huge sky, so close above them pressed down like a heavy, comforting blanket. The further they walked, another instrument joined the symphony, a deep hum. His feet dragged him towards it, his mind numbing the closer he walked. "Careful, they ain't used to being handled anymore."

At the tree line, a row of what looked like small dressers was set up on stilts. Fletcher stopped walking, but Trout couldn't stop. That hum reverberated in his chest and broke up all of the noise in his head. He could think straight for the first time in ten days because that sound cut through all of the drama and betrayal and confusion. He turned, silently questioning and pointed at it. "It's a beehive," Fletcher answered. A bonafide city kid, Eli had never heard of such a thing. "It's a house for a bee colony and they make honey you can harvest. It was Caroline's, the damn things hate me."

'Can I see?'

Fletch paled a bit. "They really hate me and…uh…aha…I ain't so keen on them neither." He looked back a Trout and sighed, "All right, all right, all right. Let's go." Every step towards the hive, the normally calm and slow moving cowboy let out a different swat, hoot, yelp or hiss as he jumped and skipped away from the bees. The insects that alighted gracefully on Eli darted and swooped angrily around Fletcher. He was stung multiple times while the bees around Eli seemed completely at peace. "Sombitch! Aha!" Eli turned his head slowly and watched his companion with an eyebrow raised in amusement. "Whoooooo! Nasty little suckers...".

"Shhhhhh," Eli soothed an slowly waved his hand backward. Fletch took the hint and retreated, running away while still keeping up his noise, but Eli stood still and relaxed. The hum this close to the hives was hypnotic and soothing, cancelling out the terrible, unrelenting replay of the last days he was with Jo and then all the days until Gordon came back for her in his head. He stood there, relishing the first calm he'd felt since the secret came out for a moment before walking closer and opening the first box. The bees crawled on him, but it didn't bother him and his presence didn't seem to bother them either. "F-f-f-f-fletch," he struggled out and turned around signing, 'Can I fix it?'

"Fix it? You want to take care of them?"

"Uh-huh. Want it….mmmmmmine." He cringed, he hadn't sounded that bad in years. He sighed, realizing just how far overboard he'd let his emotions take him. 'Until I leave,' he added. When he was just surviving past the noise it was easy to think that he was fine and that he could go back to normal when ever he wanted, but he'd let it get too far.

"I'll be damned," Fletcher hummed, rubbing his upper lip and thinking quietly before going on. "Tell you what. We'll make a deal. A trade. You promise to try coming inside the house and letting us try out what Jo is teaching us and I will haul all of Caroline's beekeeping stuff out of the attic for you and help you get the little bastards back into honey making shape. Deal?"

Trout turned and walked back, slowly, calmly, but confidently, the bees flying off of him leisurely the farther he got from the bank of hives. "D-d-d-dee….deeeal."

"Easy as that, huh?" Fletch asked with a grin. Eli smiled in response, a soft, hesitant smile, but a real one, none the less.

A/N: Fletcher in one of my favorite characters, he is loosely based on Mathew McConaughey and this chapter is so much better when you search for a video of him making noise on YouTube.


	17. Chapter 17

JoAnna stood on the porch, looking out over the Ranch. It was starting to really feel like spring, even though the nights, like this one, were still cold. She wrapped the shawl tighter around herself, still feeling the last lingering hint of a rattle when she breathed sometimes. She stepped back as Jim rambled out of the barn, and made his way around the front of the house to the little cabin he shared with Eli. She still wasn't sure about him…she had no time to spend with the hired man and if the last six years taught her anything, it was that it was safer to assume that men would hurt her, than to risk that they wouldn't. He smiled warily and tipped his hat, but she only pulled back further towards the safety of the house. He sighed and went on his way.

The door opened behind her and she jumped around, ready to run. "Easy now," Fletcher soothed. "Ain't no one 'round here gonna lay a finger on you."

She pressed her hand to her heart and forced herself to slow her breathing. She did know that. "I'm sorry," she whispered. She wanted to go back inside and curl up in her bed with a book, escape herself like she used to escape her life when she was a girl. Robin Hood, Captain Nemo, someone would take her far away from the frightened wretch she'd turned into somewhere along the way. Maybe one of her heroines could inject her with some courage of her own, bolster her with their strength.

"You have nothing to apologize for, JoAnna," the cowboy assured. "None of this is your fault." She nodded, even though she knew it wasn't true. He saw through her lie and sucked his teeth. "You talked to him at all?" She shook her head. Eli had been avoiding her more than anyone but Spot. Fletcher's warm brown eyes drifted to the mesa. "You told him to stay away, Jo, and he's going to do what you asked because he doesn't know what else to do. He's stuck…and I think you're the only one who can help him unstick himself."

"I can't help anyone," she whispered. "I can't even help myself."

Marta's low alto chuckle rang out from the door frame. "That's when you've got to help someone else who needs you. There's nothing better for feeling helpless than showing yourself that you're not." She snorted and wrapped the ends of the shawl as tightly around her as she could. As if Marta had ever been helpless. Marta laughed again, but it didn't sound happy. "Oh, I've seen my days." She shared a meaningful look with her husband. "Don't let my tough girl bull fool you. You missed the worst of it, but you were someone I helped when I was drowning. You showed up on my doorstep with Trout's note on a day when my boys had just gotten out of jail, one was missing, none were earning and they all still needed a bed to sleep in at night. The ledger was in the red and The Aid Society had already sacked another house manager for floating the boys until the strike got going." She smiled and stepped forward, and though Jo's gut reaction was to step back...she didn't. "You showed up and told me Trout was alive. You saw in him what even I had a hard time seeing at first. I could have dug myself a deeper hole and brought him home, had one more boy who couldn't pay his way in the house, but you looked so happy to have him. Giving you...and him...a friend helped all of us. It gave me a chance to fix the books, for him to get better without worrying about earning his keep..."

"And I had a person...a real person, not just a character in a book...who I could talk to. My person, made just for me." She didn't know she said it out loud until she saw the struck look on their faces. "But we're not kids anymore. There's no such thing."

"No such thing as what?" Fletcher asked.

"Soulmates, love, any of that romantic nonsense I used to love. It's bullshit."

"Love is as real as that ache in your chest that is eating you alive right now, Toots," Marta said with a hardened edge to her voice. Her hazel eyes glared at Jo's hand that started unconsciously rubbing up and down her breastbone when she started talking about love. She tried to stop, but the tightness there was so distracting. "Maybe, if you would talk to him, it wouldn't hurt so much. Maybe you're just making it worse by keeping him away."

She walked away from them quickly, her boots stoping on the plank floor of the porch, not really going anywhere, just needing distance, but her feet took her to the side of the porch that looked at Eli's little house. A lamp glowed in his window and the burn under her ribs got so much more intense knowing he was there. "Maybe I'm just trying to save him," she answered. "He deserves so much more than what I am. I'm not…good." She wasn't that pure, sweet little girl that Marta remembered anymore. Why didn't they see the dirty, degraded person that Gordon did? Why were they lying to her and to themselves that she could ever be like that again? "Not anymore."

Fletcher stepped up behind her. "You seem pretty nice to me." Marta laughed at his proud statement. "I like to think I got a knack for reading people."

Jo just turned, feeling her eyes get hot as she looked on his easily smiling face. "Gordon was the best part of the past eight years, not the worst."

"So, maybe it's time for real good times, Poppet. If you'll only believe they're possible." Her shoulders slumped. Marta might be right, but those were the kinds of things that the old JoAnna would think. She would have believed that something good was always around the corner and grown JoAnna had learned the hard way that it wasn't true. Good things couldn't be trusted. They were just bait for bad people to use against people like her. The weak ones. "You'll never know if you don't give it a chance. You're both suffering right now. Why not try to see if you can at least be friends?"

They weren't going to give up, but she couldn't deny that she really did want to see Eli again. She missed the little ray of sunshine he put in her day before she told him not to come back. "Maybe I don't want to be his friend," she said to herself as she stepped down the porch stairs. She didn't. She wanted an inexplicable episode of time travel that would allow her to go back and change everything. She wanted to run to him, hide in the attic of the Newsboys Lodging House instead of getting on that train. She wanted all of her childhood dreams and fantasies to be able to come true, but they were just fantasies. And friendship was the best she could hope for from him. Marta was right though, even friendship wasn't going to happen if they kept avoiding one another.

She tightened and tied the shawl around her shoulders, making it put the pressure on her body that she needed. She needed to feel safe before she could knock on that door. Jim looked taken aback when he opened it. "Ma'am?"

"I'm sorry about earlier," she murmured. "Is Eli here, please?"

He nodded, stroking his scraggledy gray beard thoughtfully. "Yes, Ma'am, been holed up in his room most of the afternoon. You come on in. I'll get him and then get out of the way." He stepped aside to let her in and she followed him to the closed door to the left of the tiny kitchen that sat between the two bedrooms. It was barely big enough to hold the small cast iron stove and table inside. Her nerves were buzzing as he banged on the door with the side of his fist. "Eli!" Jim called loudly. "Come out here, the boss wants to see you!" He shot her a naughty wink while the bird's nest on his face twitched and rustled in amusement before he did as he promised and closed himself in his own room.

After a clatter and the rumble of his voice as he grumbled to himself, the door flew open and she found herself staring at the smooth, perfect expanse of his naked chest. It took a moment, but eventually she managed to drag her eyes up to his as she tried to swallow. She thought it when she first saw him at the town social and just about every other time she first laid eyes on him again since, but good gracious manhood was kinder to him than most. He'd never been small, but when they were kids, a layer of softness had covered the overly large frame. Working with Fletcher had hardened those muscles and shaped them. The classical sculptures she'd been forced to study as a child had nothing on him. He stared back at her, wide eyed, for a moment before he stepped back and slammed the door in her face. Neither of them had noticed the small steps she took towards him before, but she sure noticed once the door hit her nose!

She leaned her head against the door and had to choke back tears. She needed to take this as a sign and go, maybe go farther than her bedroom in the big house. Maybe she just needed to run…Still, her body felt alive. She was tingling in a way she'd never felt before. She'd never been attracted to Gordon, she just owed it to him to be with him. The others who took advantage before he saved her from herself, hadn't been much better. This spark, this heat building inside of her was a stranger, something she'd only read about in trashy novels. This was what had been missing from her life, what she wanted with her heart, her body and her soul. But she was still married. She was still broken. And he was still too good for her. She pushed away, ready to bolt, but his hand on hers stopped her.

His shirt buttons were misaligned, leaving his untucked tails lopsided. He stood there, one of his hands rubbing the back of his neck raw while his ears turned red. Her body relaxed, just like it always did when she saw him. Nothing bad ever happened when she was with him, not when it was just the two of them, at least. "Hi," she whispered, looking up at him through her eyelashes. "I'm sorry I disturbed you, I figured you would have heard me talking to Jim and were just ignoring me." He shrugged and shook his head, signing that he didn't hear her. "You've been avoiding me, so I wasn't sure." She paused and looked up at him quizzically. "You're not going to talk to me? Not even in sign?"

He shifted uncomfortably. 'Not avoiding. Giving you room.'

What a strange thing to say. "Room for what?"

'To find you,' he answered. She smiled softly and he took a moment to get a good look at her. Her deep, dark eyes weren't so shadowed and hollow and her hair shone under the light of the low hanging moon. She was a tiny bit taller than when she was fifteen, rounder in certain places and narrower in others.

"Come take a walk with me. We have lots to catch up on."

"'Kay," he rumbled, more vibration than sound and picked up his boots. He laced them up and shrugged into his coat before opening the door for her.

She took his arm and smiled at the closeness for just a moment before the scent of roses hit her nose, knocking the wind out of her. Turkish Rose, it had always been her favorite. A thousand bad feelings from hundreds of days of a husband coming home smelling like flowers that he had no business smelling like came bubbling up. She was so angry at him. After that beautiful letter, he was seeing someone else. She felt sick as her trembling voice said, "Eli, why do you smell like ladies perfume?" His sheepish smile did nothing to quell her anger. He put his hand in his pocket pulling out a brand new cake of expensive ladies soap, tied with a pink ribbon and held it out to her. She eyed it warily and then glared up at him, crossing her arms over her chest, refusing to take it. He couldn't distract her with presents, Gordon even stopped trying that early on. "I don't wear rose," she answered stiffly. His brow furrowed, and he watched her carefully as he tucked the gift under his elbow to use his hands. 'I know," he signed. 'You wore the yellow one, because your mother wanted you to. But you like roses better.' His hands went to his pockets and his shoulders drew in as he dropped his gaze to the grass. Night had really and truly fallen, but the moon was nice and bright. She watched him pull into himself and realized her mistake. Her jagged, broken edges were hurting him again.

Her hand reached out to him, but he shrugged away from the touch. "Eli," she pleaded. "I'm sorry. I'm just….can I try again?" She held her hand out and he placed the soap in it roughly before stuffing his in pockets. She held the little disk up to her nose and smiled as she breathed in the familiar scent. "Hot water," she whispered. He looked up and the ghost of a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. "You remembered that?" He nodded, and his shoulders relaxed a bit. His hands came out of his pockets. She was getting through. His left hand raised up and rubbed anxiously at the back of his neck and she smiled at the familiar habit. "Why aren't you talking to me?"

'Tired,' he answered shortly. 'Glad you like the soap.'

"The truth, please."

He groaned and rubbed at his upper arm, hugging the right one into his body. 'Can't'

"Show me." His brow furrowed and he looked pained before he opened his mouth. It took a few tries, and her stomach tightened the longer he fumbled. He growled at himself, and slammed his hands down on the fence rail, dropping his head and burying his fingers in his thick hair.

"I don't understand," she whispered. "You were doing so well." She put her hand on his elbow and he flinched but didn't pull away. "Did I do this?"

He stared at her, the confusion plain on his handsome face and shame bubbled up in her breast. Why did she need to make everything about herself? He was the one struggling. "No," he rumbled before switching to sign. 'Not your fault that my head is…' He waved his hands around his head wildly and she smiled.

"That makes two of us." She moved her hand down and tucked it into his, sighing as his warmth wrapped around her cold fingers. "You don't have to talk anymore. You know that. I thought that maybe you would even though you won't talk to anyone else, like before." His hand wrapped around hers again and she hesitantly leaned her head against his shoulder. "Tomorrow is my night to cook. Will you come?" He fidgeted and looked down at her before tapping his hand to his pocket. "You don't have to talk to Spot and you certainly don't have to forgive him. But I'd like you to be there." He rested his chin on top of her head and let out a weighty sigh before nodding. "Thank you." They stood there in the dark for awhile, enjoying the comfort of each other's touch for a bit longer before she pulled away. "I better get to bed." He reached out like he wanted to cup her face in his hand, but pulled back, somehow knowing that it wasn't the right thing to do. "You're a good man, Eli Cooper. Thank you for being exactly who you are." She walked away, forcing herself to keep moving. It was too soon. She couldn't throw herself back into loving him. Not while she was still married to Gordon.


	18. 18

The next afternoon he came into the kitchen as she rushed around, clucking to herself like a ruffled hen and he stood to the side and watched her with a funny little smirk curling his mouth. She glared at him, "I got behind schedule because Clarice insisted that I was incapable of making a pie for you without her help. He chuckled to himself, but didn't say anything as he started to set out place settings with ease. As she relaxed, she realized how nice it was, just the two of them playing house as if this was really the way it could ever be for them. It was silent, but pleasant and companionable. The kind of silence that Jo had only know when with him or a good book.

Jo moved the dutch oven full of meat and gravy over to the table and set it down, as Spot entered the room. She watched him warily, feeling in her bone marrow that this was the end of her happy day dream. Spot's eerie, glasslike eyes filled with something akin to pure joy when he saw his friend in the house. Unfortunately, Spot Conlon didn't know how to deal with joy. Instead, he smirked and said, "So, you decided we ain't so bad after all." JoAnna stiffened, feeling the searing heat coming off of Eli and closed her eyes.

Trout flew at Spot, their combined body weight hitting the heavy trestle table with enough force to send them, table and all to the floor together. The crash made the glass in the windows shake, and the clatter of twelve place settings, a dutch oven and a pie hitting the boards brought everyone running. The resounding explosion of noise made her crumple to the floor in her corner, staring hollowly at the puddle of chicken stew splattered next to the table. She clapped her entire arms around her head and cried like a child while the two grown men brawled like the wild street urchins they once were, beating each other senseless. Marta yelled at them to stop and take the brawl outside but they didn't hear her. "Don't make me hurt you." Spot warned through bloodstained teeth. "Yell at me all you want, tell me off, but quit hitting me! I can't stop once you get me started." His voice sounded desperate.

Eli did yell. He rambled out a long tirade that made no sense to anyone, but he didn't stop punching. "Oh yeah?" Spot yelled back, "What else? Get it all out in the open. Tell me what you really think! I deserve it! All of it! But quit," he dodged another punch, something changing in his eyes, "fucking," he couldn't move quick enough and took a hit to the jaw, "hitting me!" Trout gave another savage yell that made every muscle in JoAnna's body feel like it was trying to turn inside out as he threw hit after hit. Everything stopped with an anguished howl as Spot caught his fist and torqued it to the side. Their eyes met and locked, facing off with feral ferocity. They really were wild boys, and it terrified her. How was she supposed to survive in a world of beasts? How was she supposed to tell the difference between the ones that could and couldn't be tamed. Gordon looked like a kitten, but he hurt her. Was Eli the animal he was showing right now or the sweet person she thought she knew?

Darcy shoved past the boys trying to get to her friend, but as suddenly as he stopped the fight, Spot was up on his feet, gripping her arm with the same strength he was just using on Eli. She glared up at him. "Let. Me. Go."

"She's coddled enough as it is; she don't need you fussing over her!" His voice was cold and low, like nothing JoAnna had ever heard before.

Darcy stared up at him, her face and watercolor green eyes giving nothing away even as his sharp fingers dug into her flesh. "Are we doing this again?" she asked in a low purr. That voice cut through JoAnna's fear the same way it seemed to sever Spot's anger. His eyes softened and then closed. "This is not about you. Get a grip and let me go." He forced his hand to open and swiftly pulled Darcy into him, pressing his mouth to her forehead and mumbling his apologies into her skin. "Let me go to her. She's alone," she purred into his shoulder. He nodded, and let her go, sitting down hard in the nearest chair. The heels of his hands pressed into his temples hard, as if he could squeeze the bad thoughts out. JoAnna's eyes drifted to Marta who moved towards Spot and dropped her hands to her side. As if he already knew they'd be there, his fingers reached out towards hers, brushing them slightly before he laced his behind his head and rested his elbows on his knees.

Eli and Darcy approached slowly, but still she felt like she had to get away. She didn't trust him not to hurt her. "Jo…" he whispered hoarsely dropping on all fours and crawling towards her, reaching out, but not daring to touch her until she reached out to touch him first. He meant her no harm but she flinched and whimpered pitifully as his bruised and bloodied hand grazed her knee. His brilliant blue eyes went from sad to cutting in a mere breath and he stood rolling something around in his brain that seemed to actually hurt him to think and it was her fault. She snapped the shred of control he found. A low growl rumbled out of the back of his throat. 'What do you want from me? I'm not him,' he signed in sharp, decisive gestures and Jo hid her face in her knees and cried.

She felt rather than saw the long but light strides across the kitchen. Marta grabbed his arm and hauled him to his feet, stepping up so close that their chests were nearly touching. "Are you an animal?" she asked in a cold whisper. "Was Gordon right about you?" He stood, seething, breathing heavily through his nose, contemplating if this was a fight he wanted. His eyes dropped to the floor as he jammed his hands in his pockets and shook his head slowly. "Good," she breathed. "Come on," she took his arm and tugged him to the back door, murmuring softly for just him to hear as she led him out the back door with a small smile at the rest of them over her shoulder. The door closed and another pained yell rang through the air. They all cringed as the turmoil in his head spilled out for all of them to hear.

Darcy inched towards JoAnna, "Heya, Sweets," she murmured, but Jo just shook her head and covered her ears to block out Eli's pain. "Ok," Darcy whispered, "it's ok. You stay there as long as you need. I'll be real close."

Darcy made the kids and Fletcher scrambled eggs and bread and butter and sent them to eat on the porch while she started to clean up the mess, but Spot pushed a sandwich at her. "I've got it. Go sit with Clairey," he said. "It's my mess."

She looked up at him. "You don't get to hurt me and you know that," she said, her voice breaking. She looked over at Jo, who was still curled in on herself. "I'm not going back there. Not ever. If you can't control yourself, you don't get me."

"I never promised I wouldn't hurt you," he rumbled, his voice heavy with shame.

She smiled and ran the back of her index finger along his jaw. "And I never promised not to get pissed at you when you screw up. What I promised is to get through it, and we will, but tonight, you need to stay away." She kissed the corner of his mouth tenderly, but he didn't kiss back. He just stood there, his brow furrowed, crinkling the long scar on his forehead, as he took her punishment and rejection.

Spot cleaned the kitchen, righted the mammoth table, scooped up the spoiled remnants of her supper and smashed pie without so much as a cuss word muttered under his breath. He washed the dishes and was just finishing mopping the floor when she forced herself to her feet, walking to the large pantry on legs that felt leaden. She hadn't had a drink since Wichita, Gordon didn't allow her. Marta kept a bottle of whiskey on the topmost pantry shelf and she climbed to reach it. He watcher her solemnly as she got down two glasses and sat at the table. "Have a drink with me, Spot," she whispered, nudging the other glass towards him with her fingertips.

"I don't drink," he answered, but sat down with her anyways, swirling the liquid around in the glass and watching it intently. "How come you's afraid of him but not me?"

"I'm afraid of everyone," she answered, tipping back the glass quickly and sputtering as the stuff burned it's way down her throat. "I'm just more angry with you than I am afraid." She paused and poured another drink for herself. "I've never seen him like that. He was always so…strong. I thought I was safe with him. I've always known I wasn't safe with you."

He didn't answer, he just nodded slowly as he swirled the cup, the sound of glass on the worn wood of the table grating against her already fragile nerves. She reached out and poured herself another. "Maybe then you wasn't. Not now. You's the only thing besides music that makes him happy. I'm not the piece of crap I was back then. I want him to be happy, even if it means he's not around me." She snorted into her glass and his lip curled a bit. "I don't mean what I say when I'm like that…" He paused and his brow furrowed again. "Every mean nasty thought I've ever had comes out my mouth and I believe them in the moment, but most of them ain't true. You ain't been coddled in years."

As usual, he brought out her worst. "You don't have to save my feelings," she spat. "There's nothing worth saving about me, no sense in the great Spot Conlon going soft on my account." Her tone turned mockingly scandalized as she placed her hand to her heart like her mother used to. "What would Brooklyn say to that?"

His disgust was plain on his face, but he didn't speak again till he could hold his tongue. "You know he'd never hurt you, right?"

"Like you'd never hurt Darcy?" she challenged. The alcohol was loosening her tongue and tapping into a swell of anger that she didn't even know was inside of her. "That's what she told me, you know. That you're a good man who would never hurt her."

"She knows I'd never mean to hurt her," he answered, picking up his glass and giving it a serious thought before setting it back down with force enough to slosh the burning liquid on the tabletop, "but she also knows what I come from and how completely messed up I am. I slip up; I lose control and when that happens, she kicks me out until she can trust me again. I don't ask to come back until she tells me I can. It's her call."

"How can she trust you if you've hurt her so much that you have a plan for when it happens?"

He smiled sadly and stood, taking long strides to the sink to dump the glass of whiskey down the drain. "Beats the fuck outta me," he answered finally with a cheeky smirk as he anchored his hip to the edge of the sink. Her lips felt warm and numb and her eyes heavy. He snatched the bottle out of her hand and put it away. "I'm always getting myself ready for her, or Marta or Trout to tell me to get the hell out and not look back. I've been waiting for my marching orders from all of them since I was five, but they keep forgiving me. I never know why; I wouldn't put up with me."

"I guess they're just better people than you."

He laughed and she found herself smiling along with him. Was it the alcohol making her smile? Probably. "That's a given, ain't it?" She snorted again. "You know that shit don't solve nothing, right?" He pointed at her glass. "The cure you's feeling will wear off and you'll need more and more and more to make the pain go away until you can't see past the end of the bottle. Nothing else will matter. It makes people stupid and weak. And you are neither stupid nor weak." She raised a brow while tipping the contents down and glaring at him challengingly. He sighed and scrubbed his face. "When you try to fix your problems with booze, all you get is…me."

"Somehow I find it hard to believe that you don't drink. Is this part of the 'new and improved Spot Conlon?'"

"I never touched the stuff. I carried it around sometimes, made it look like I was drinking because the reputation demanded it, but I hate it. I ain't got the luxury of letting go of my control to a bottle. What you saw over there was me trying to keep myself here, trying to keep control. Might as well throw booze on a fire and see what happens. I'd be just like them."

"Who?"

"Bastards I came from. My mother said she did what she did to feed me and keep a roof over me, but then she'd spend the money on booze just so she could numb herself enough to do it again." JoAnna gawked at him as she processed what he was telling her. He smiled, and it was almost charming. "Even more fucked up than even you could have imagined, right?"

She laughed, just a few notes, but a laugh nonetheless. "Truth be told, I never gave where you came from much thought." She looked at him out of the corner of her eye, "I just assumed to were created from the sludge at the bottom of the East River and somehow came to life and decided to try your hand at seeming human one day."

He laughed loudly and took her glass from her, pumping some water to rinse it out. "I feel like we might just make it out of this without killing each other, Jo."

She snorted, "Maybe, but this doesn't mean I like you."

He grinned, "You gonna be ok?"

"I don't know." He moved across the distance between them in a few quick strides and sat down next to her, grabbing her hand before she could pull it away. His hand was cold and his fingers long and slender, wrapping easily around her's with a touch that was surprisingly gentle.

"Trust him. If there is anything I can tell you that I'm sure of, it's that Trout Cooper deserves your trust and he will protect it and you forever." He paused, staring at their hands in disbelief and letting go. "You know what the first thing he wanted to say when he started trying to talk was?"

"I'd guess his name since that was what got him locked up and forgotten about," she answered.

He smiled, again, almost charmingly. "Nope. Your name. Since the first day he met you, you've been the first thing on his mind. Think about that the next time you wanna throw a wrench in things because you's too happy. He put your name before his own."

"Go apologize to your wife. I'd hate to have your ugly face be the first thing I see tomorrow morning because she made you sleep on the sofa."

"G'night, Jo." He went out to the sitting room to kiss Clarice good night and send her with Darcy back to their little house and Jo smiled as she heard him tell Darcy, "I'll be waiting. I ain't going no where unless you tell me to buzz off."


	19. Chapter 19

The clatter of wagon wheels coming up the mesa trail pulled his attention away from the shingles he was hammering into the roof of the small shed he perched on top of. It was only eight foot by eight foot, but it was enough for processing the honey and for him to sleep in while he pulled himself back together. The bees, the quiet, the solitude, they all forced him to get his head back together after the disaster of the family dinner. He was a coward and he knew it, hiding out on the hill away from all of them for so long. A whole month had passed. It was late June now and the bees buzzed happily through the tall grass of the meadow. Birdsong filled the warm air and thunderstorms rolled through most afternoons, chasing away the heat of the day. It was like one of JoAnna's make believes from when they were kids, a real place made magical.

Eli climbed down from the roof of the shed and ducked inside it to hide the three wool blankets that made up his bed most nights. Fletch and Jim knew he was sleeping there, but no one else needed to. He came back out of the hut and his breath caught in his throat. He was expecting Fletcher with their new honey extraction equipment and knew there was a chance that Marta went to town with him, but the wagonload of equipment was being driven by Spot with JoAnna riding shotgun and Clarice practically falling out of the bed with excitement, being held in by Darcy. He watched them cautiously from the doorway with his arms crossed over his chest, his hip resting against the frame with a carefully practiced air of ease covering the fact that he was sick with anxiety over having to face them. They watched right back, no one speaking except for Clarice who was fussing and squawking about not being helped out of the wagon yet. Jo turned back and smiled at her before putting her hand on Spot's elbow. Spot didn't deserve her kindness. She climbed down and helped Clarice, who took off running to him. He caught her in his arms and threw her high in the air, laughing as her squeals of delight carried in the early summer breeze.

Jo walked towards him, but stopped, staring out into Caroline's Meadow with wide eyes and a soft smile on her face. He perched Clarice on his hip and looked out over the sea of grass, dotted with columbine, Indian paintbrush and cactus blooms and felt himself smile. He knew she would love it. He'd planned on brining her up there, but then everything fell apart. "Eli…" she breathed, dragging her eyes up to his. "It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen." Clarice wiggled out of his arms and ran into the grass, stripping her dress and underclothes off as she ran. She was already barefoot and her little dress fell in a heap at the edge of the tall grass. She squealed again as she pushed into the meadow and JoAnna looked on with a faraway smile in her eyes. "Oh, to be a girl," she sighed, "'half savage, hearty and free.'" She looked up at him and smiled. She turned and looked back at the wagon where Darcy and Spot were now sitting close together, deep in conversation. "I'll be in the meadow when you're done, but you need to listen to him first." Eli pressed his brow down to his eyes and shook his head. "For me. Please."

He shook his head again and crossed his arms, turning away from her. "D-d-don't wwwwwwant to t-t-talk… to him. D-don't wwwwwant to hhhhhurt you an-an-anymore."

"We're going hurt hurt each other from time to time, Love." His heart gave a jolt as she called him that and he cautiously turned to meet her gaze. There wasn't a bit of fear on her face, just a small smile and a lot of hope. Her smile widened and went all the way to her eyes that were pulling him in, sucking him out of his solitude and into their warm, velvety depths. Her soft hands landed on his forearms and ran up and down gently. "I know you'd never mean to hurt me. I know that you are just as confused about everything that is happening between us as I am. That's why I want you to listen." She dropped her hands, the smile fading from her face and the sadness clouding over her eyes again. He would do just about anything to bring back that smile and to fall into those pools of dark chocolate again. She reached up like she was going to touch his face, but she stopped herself. "I know you'd be good to me, Eli, and I'd try to be so good to you, but I'm not the fifteen year old who couldn't cross a bridge on her own anymore. So, please, talk to him, for me."

He nodded, "Fffffffor you." If it would put that smile back on her face, he'd do it. He'd stand there and wait until Spot spoke his piece and then he'd blow him off.

She smiled and stood on her tip toes to press a soft kiss to his stubbled cheek. "You've changed since we were kids too." He closed his eyes as her warm, soft lips touched his skin. His arms erupted in goosebumps even in the warmth of the day at her touch. "I'll be with Clarice, come find me when you three are done." Her smile widened and she waded into the waist high grass, letting the bearded heads kiss her fingers as she walked. She found Clarice and squealed, swinging the little girl up and around before dropping into the grass. Their giggles joined the birdsong and the wind in the air.

"Trout…" Spot's voice cut through their happy noise, and Trout felt his fists clench. "She's something else." They approached him, hand in hand and he felt his stance change to one of defense. Spot saw the shift as well and stopped short. "I ain't here for a fight, Trout. I'm here to drop your tools off and to do what Jo asked of me. Nothing else." He dropped Darcy's hand and held his hands up submissively.

Eli turned and eyed the man that his best friend had grown to be stonily. Spot looked like he might be sick, but Darcy just smiled. The urge to yell at Spot again was so hard to contain, but at the same time he wanted to turn his back on him and never speak to him again. 'You'd already know that if you ever gave her a chance,' he signed. He didn't trust his mouth, but he also wanted to test Spot, see if he really was learning like he'd refused to do six years before.

"Trout, talk to me."

He glared at him. 'No. You talk to me. You don't get to call all the shots anymore. I don't want to talk to you. You want to talk to me? You can deal with how I want to talk.' Spot took a step back and swallowed, fighting with himself about whether or not to take being told what to do laying down. Darcy shook her head, pulling him back from getting defensive. Trout curled his lip in a disgusted snarl at them and signed, 'There is nothing you can tell me about Jo because you never took the time to know her.'

"I did now since you decided to run away! Again!" Spot snapped. Eli hated that he was impressed. "She didn't understand anything that was going on with you and you were up here hiding. Someone had to help her."

'You've never helped anyone in your life.'

"That's not true, Trout," Darcy said in that quiet voice that she used on them when they were wild. "He helped me. Mick took me when I was twelve. That's five years of being beat and raped and handed out like a trophy to the men when Mick wanted to treat them." Tears pooled in her eyes as she remembered those awful years. "It didn't matter how bad off he was, when I fell apart, Spot was there telling me that I was worth it and I did matter. And that's what you need to be doing to JoAnna. Not hiding up here, sleeping in a shed so you don't have to see any of us. Or running away to Colorado Springs." She pulled an envelope out of her pocket and handed it to him. "Mr. Mason had this when we picked up the equipment. Were you really going to go away without talking to us?"

"Shhhhhhhe's a-a-afraid…of me." He wanted to get away, let her heal. It was killing him to see her unhappy and to always be the one saying the wrong thing to try to fix it.

Darcy smiled and stepped forward. "She's not, Sweets. She wasn't seeing you that day. Her mind plays tricks on her and it will for awhile. Mine did too, and you know Spot's does still. But if you run away from her every time it happens, then she will start to see you as the same as him." She stepped forward again and took his hands in her tiny ones, ducking inward to force him to look her in the eye. "She needs you, Eli. You can help her see past the lies Gordon fed her."

He shrugged her off. He wanted nothing to do with Spot and being down with them all the time, being in the ranch house meant being with Spot. He wasn't sure he could be both there for JoAnna and away from Spot at the same time. 'So I have to help her see past the lies, but I'm just supposed to ignore the ones he told me?'

Spot slumped. "I never lied to you. I thought I was protecting you; I thought she was too coddled to go off on her own."

Spot's denial burned him. How could he still deny that he lied? A growl ripped out of him even though he tried to stop it. He closed his eyes and rolled his shoulders, trying to calm himself so that it wouldn't happen again. 'You're lying right now. You couldn't even give me the truth before you left! You could have told me about JoAnna then, but you didn't! I never would have come here if you had!'

"And you wouldn't have found her again! You can't change what happened, Trout!"

"Eli," Darcy said quietly, smoothing her hair back. It was so fine and silky that the only way it would stay up and out of her way was to braid it and wrap the long skinny braids around her head like a crown. Even then, the front over her forehead and the back at the nape of her neck fell in whisps.. "Did you ever think about how life would have been if you left with her that day? Or if JoAnna went with her mother?" He stopped, some of his thoughts nearly everyday for the past six years were on one of those two subjects. "If you went with her, you'd have been the only one there to teach her how to survive. You'd have resented her for it and that beautiful young love you had would have been destroyed by her dependence on you." He shuddered at that thought because he knew it was true. He knew it when he was fifteen too, it was part of the reason he begged her to go with her mother. She wasn't savvy enough to be on her own then, but she'd flown off anyway. "She'd be in the same place she is now, only you'd be the man she was running from instead of to. If she went on the ship with her mother, you'd never have the chance to be together and eventually the class differences would have pulled you apart. She couldn't fit in your world and you had no chance in hers. But here, you're the same. You're both just people looking for a new start here. Just Eli and JoAnna. I'm not condoning what Spot did, but his choice ended up giving you two the chance at happiness that you never would have had otherwise. You have the chance to make your first love into your great love, so long as you let it happen." She smirked knowingly, "Her name sign could be the truth again, Trout. You and her, the same."

"Me and Darcy, we're not what normally works," Spot said quietly. "Getting married at seventeen after only knowing each other a few weeks ain't really the best way to do it, but it worked for us. We made it work."

She giggled, "You're involved, Spot, of course we ain't normal."

He rolled his eyes. "You's got a second chance here, Trout. Don't give it up because I'm an asshole. Ignore me all you want, but don't ditch her."

They hadn't let him get a word in edgewise in a while, and when they finally paused, he shoved his hands in his pockets. He and JoAnna, the same like they were always meant to be. He cocked and eyebrow at Spot. 'Why are you protecting her?'

"Because she's yours, Trout," Spot answered simply, as if the answer was obvious. "Because I didn't do the right thing by you and I owe you a shit ton more than a weak apology. She lets me feel like I can make it up to her even if I know I can't."

He thought about that. His resolve crumbled. "She s-s-said she nnnnnneeded things…"

A bright smile spread over Darcy's face, flushing her cheeks and warming her watery eyes at the sound of him speaking. "She needs to know that with you, her place is where ever she wants it to be. She needs somone to tell her hard truths sometimes, like that she needs to do it herself. Or that no, its not going to get easier." Clarice squealed as JoAnna threw her in the air again before they both sunk down below the tops of the grass again.

"Just what this place needs, another bossy female," Spot groused and Darcy slapped in in the chest with the backs of her knuckles and glared up at him.

"You can leave if you're gonna be a nuisance," she snapped with her hands on her hips until he backed down and grumbled his apologies. Eli loved watching Spot Conlon get put in his place by a four foot tall blonde. She sighed in exasperation, but winked cheekily at Trout as she turned back to him. "She's never had control of her own life. Not ever, except the time she was with you at the school, Eli. Give her her freedom, and she'll always come back."

He stared at her slack jawed for a moment before he started laughing and couldn't stop. They looked back at him like he lost his mind up there on the mesa all alone. "Mmmmmy nnnnnnight-nightingale. Like…the st-st-st-story."

Spot snorted, watching his daughter and shaking his head in disbelief. "This is it, Trout. The place where a bird and a fish can make that nest, so long as the fish decides to stick around."

The two boys stared at one another, neither knowing how to end the conversation, nor where this left their relationship. It was Eli who spat in his palm and held it out. "I d-don't ffforgive you…b-but….thhhhhh…thhhhanks."

Spot spat in his palm and grasped Eli's hand firmly. "It's my turn to show you that the loyalty goes both ways. I owe that to you. You need me, I'm there. And I appreciate you not pounding my ass."

Darcy stepped up and wrapped her arms around him. The top of her head didn't even come up to his chest. "You've got to quit running away sometime, Trout. Please don't run from us." He held her in, her warm embrace soothing the sick, guilty feeling in his stomach.

He still bowed his head, before signing, 'Does she know?'

"About the letter?" Spot asked and Eli nodded. "She knows it's there, but she wanted to wait to see what you had to say." Eli nodded again and rubbed at the back of his neck. "Come on, lets get this crap into your shed and we'll get out of your hair." Spot jerked his thumb back towards the wagon. They moved the equipment into the shed and Spot smirked. "Guess you's gotta come home now. All ya fancy toys don't leave enough space for for your giant ass in here." Trout snorted, but it was true. He'd have to go back down the hill.

"Jo? Clariey, come on!" Darcy called. The two girls popped up out of the grass, their hair full of flowers, Clarice was still naked as the day she was born and JoAnna had stripped down to just her underclothes in the privacy of the tall grass. They were both pink with sun and play and Clarice's eyes were red and heavy lidded. Jo carried her out of the meadow and handed her to Spot.

"I wanna stay with Jojo and Eli," she whined sleepily, digging her fist into her eye.

'Go take a nap, Buttercup,' Eli signed, kissing her cheek. 'We'll play tomorrow.'

"Promise?" she mumbled. "You're coming home?" He nodded and drew an x over his heart. She smiled and yawned. "Jojo and me was being fairies."

Jo giggled and pushed the silky blonde hair away from the girl's face as Clarice snuggled into Spot's chest. "Its too pretty to leave just yet." With that she waded back into the tall grass and flopped down with a contented sigh. Spot shook his head and carried his daughter back to the wagon with Darcy right behind him. Trout waved them off and then watched JoAnna's hands raise above the grass to play with the bearded seed pods and the blue and white butterflies while gently humming to herself. He climbed up the ladder to finish his work while she sang and made daisy chains and recited poetry to herself. She was free. Free of the weight she'd carried for so long. Free of Gordon and his ridicule. Free to be herself.


	20. Chapter 20

The afternoon thunderstorm never rolled through that day, as if everything in creation was finally on their side. She was left alone and content, laying on her back in Caroline's meadow all afternoon, serenaded by the grasshoppers with their clicking wings, the hummingbirds, the bees and the birds as well as Eli's hammering as he finished the roof of the shed. He watched her from above, but never dared to break into her peaceful daydreams. Later that night, with the bright stars rolled out overhead, they sat together around the fire. He poked around in the embers and added more fuel logs before settling down about a third of the way around the ring from her. She perched on a wide upright log, with her knees tucked to her chest and her arms wrapped around them. Her cheek rested on her knees and her dark eyes reflected the dancing light of the fire while she continued her quiet, but contented daydreaming. A shudder ran through her body and while it could have just been from something she was thinking about, he went to the shed to pull out one of his blankets and wrapped the warm, woolen material around her shoulders. "It's nnnnnnnno b-b-b-bearskin, but its wwwwwwarm," he said.

She took his hand, pulling him down to sit on the ground in front of her log. Her soft hands pulled his hat from his head and raked gently through his hair, sending shivers down his spine. "Slow down," she murmured in his ear, leaning in to wrap her blanket around him too. "You don't have to impress me, nor anyone else." She unfurled herself and he settled his back against her legs, rubbing one of her shins absently.

Her warmth against his back felt so good. Everything about this was right, but at the same time, every other time he'd followed that feeling since she'd been back she'd lashed out and hurt him. He wasn't sure he could open himself up to it again. "You…mmmake me…nnnnervous."

She sighed. "Is that why you want to leave?" Her hands that were resting gently on his shoulders tensed, and he felt wrong and guilty underneath them. His head wagged back and forth slowly, but he had no words to offer her. "Do you want to leave?"

Again, he shook his head. "I d-don't…thhhhhhhink…I sh-should s'ay,' he said, wincing at the way he could never get 'stay' out correctly. 'Stay' and 'kiss' were two on a small list of words that no amount of practice seemed to improve. "I d-don't want to go, b-but you only get b-b-b-better when I leave. You need mmmme g-gone."

Her hands pulled away from him, leaving icy cold places on his skin. He mourned the loss of that touch. "Do I?" she spat, bitterly. "Seems to me you never asked what I need or what I want. You just did what you always do and decided to sacrifice yourself." He took her choice away, but at the same time, she was getting angry at him for leaving when she did nothing but push him away! What was he supposed to think? He turned and shoved gently at her hip, trying to get her to move so they could see each other, but she crossed her arms over her chest and planted her feet. "What?" she snapped as he continued to badger her. "Use your damn words and tell me what you want!"

He let a small vibration out of his throat before standing up and gently moving her to her feet in front of him. 'I will when you do,' he signed.

She rolled her eyes and shoved him weakly in his chest, "You, you big dummy! I. Want. You." He couldn't move. He stood there, his hands shaking, his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. "I want you here, not in Colorado Springs. Here, with me. And if you really have a good reason to go, I want to go with you. I just found you again. I'm not letting you go because I'm a little…broken and you're spooked."

'Is that really what you want?'

She paled and rubbed her hands against her skirt, her blanket dropping to the ground. The firelight flickering red and orange highlights on her hair. "Today? More than anything," she answered, her eyes warming and latching onto his, before dropping to her boots. "But we could wake up tomorrow and I might be terrified, by supper I might hate you and three weeks from next Tuesday, I might want to lay down and die." She whimpered sadly. "I'm a disaster. I'm a mess and maybe you're right, maybe you should go. Go save yourself before I break you."

He stepped back towards her, pulling her hands up and kissing her palms. "No," he said gently, her palm against his mouth. "You…are…p-perfect."

She snorted, "A perfect disaster."

His mouth curled into a knowing smirk as he pulled her ever closer to him and dropped her hands only to cup the back of her head with one hand while the other pressed into the small of her back. "Mmmmy d-d'saster." With that he pulled her the few inches closer to him and pressed his lips to hers like he'd wanted to every day for more than two months. For a fraction of a second, she stiffened in shock before her hands fisted his shirt and a sigh escaped her lips. Her body melted against his and the only thing holding her upright was his arms and her will to not let her mouth leave his. Lips and tongues moved in sync, each wanting to taste, explore and savor the other as much as possible. Each reveling in the familiarity, the taste of the missing piece of their own heart. After what felt like both eons and only moments all at the same time, she pulled away and tipped her head back with a soft, feathery moan that made every muscle in his body pull inward. He dipped his nose forward, letting his mouth run softly over the skin at the hollow of her throat. "I wwwwant to kit…kit…kitss you so b-b-bad it hhhhurts," he stammered without lifting his mouth from the intoxicating warmth of her skin.

She chuckled and the feel of her voice making a happy noise right under his lips was enough to pull a soft groan from deep inside of him. "You are kissing me, silly," she said in a low husky voice as his lips travelled up her neck to pull her earlobe into his mouth.

"That's what I sssssaid," he whispered in her ear, "o-o-on the rrrroof." She shoved him away and stared up into his eyes, searching, though for what he didn't know. Fear was bubbling in his guts, waiting for her to laugh or push him away.

"And now?" she asked meekly. "Now what do you want?"

"You," he answered. "J-just you. H-however mmmuch you wwwwant to give, I want it." She smiled with tears in her eyes and collapsed back into him, gripping around his ribs tightly and suddenly he understood what Spot was telling him. "When you want me, I-I-I-I'll be there. If…you…nnnnneed me g-g-gone, I'll come u-u-u-up hhhhhere."

She shook her head and he felt her tears soaking into his shirt. "That's not fair to you."

He pulled her face up and brushed her tears away with work roughed fingers that were somehow still so gentle. Once he was sure she would stay standing, he signed, 'I waited six years. Whether you need six days, six weeks, six months or another six years to feel like this is right every day, I will wait. I'd wait sixty if it meant I got to spend some of those days in those years with you. And if you want me to take the job and let you find who you are alone first, I'll go, and I'll come home for Christmas. I want you. Only you. I'm yours. Tell me what you need.' He put his hands down and wrapped them around hers and she leaned back in and cried in a way that made his heart feel like it was being stomped on. "I c-c-can't promise to not be a jerk sometimes. It hurts wwwwwhen you push me away…" He waited for an answer, the anxiety twisting around his insides like a hangman's noose, but she just cried like all the sorrow that had ever been in her life was compounding and coming out of her all at once.

"Can you just hold me?" she choked out between sobs. "Just hold me like you used to?" He sat her down on the ground and wrapped the blanket back around her and went to get the other two. He spread one down on the dirt to keep the chill from coming up into their backs and sat down on it, pulling her into his side and laying the other over their laps and they sat like that, her alternately crying and dozing, him wrapped around her, trying to hold all of her pieces together as the stars made their lazy way across the velvety night sky.

At some point he must have fallen asleep, because he opened his eyes to bright, clean morning sun streaming into his face and gentle fingers combing through his hair. She was sitting so still, her face turned towards the warm beams of light like a sunflower, a soft smile toying with her lips. Even though her eyes were puffy and red from all of her tears, her brow was relaxed and he could tell she was at peace with whatever had upset her so the night before. He took her hand from his hair and kissed each fingertip, her palm, the inside of her wrist, gently pulling her down over him, her hair hanging like a curtain around them both. "D-d-d-d-d-do," he paused and huffed in exasperation and she kissed him and reminded him to slow down again, "Dd-d-do you h-h-hate me this mmmmorning?" he asked.

She smiled and shook her head, kissing him softly. "No, but I am hungry, and no offense, Love, but you smell like a mountain hermit. Lets get you a proper bath and me a proper breakfast." He chuckled and folded up the blankets, but when he tried to put them away in the shed she cleared her throat reproachfully. "I don't care how mean to you I am, no more living on the hill with the bees. You have a bed, take those back to it." He hesitated, staring at the blankets and rubbing the thick, soft material between his fingers. "Eli, I'm always going to come back to you. Always. You are the magnetic north that my compass points to. You are it for me. I've always known that, even if I tried to forget it for awhile. You're never going to have to hide from me again." She caressed his cheek with her soft hand before getting a mischievous gleam in her eyes that she narrowed shrewdly, "No moah sleepin in dat shed." Her impression of Marta's drawl was perfect and he laughed. Marta never spoke the street dialect like Spot and Race did, but she was born and raised in Brooklyn, the clipped accent was what she knew and Jo sounded just like her. Her impression of Marta's infamous pissed off face was well worth it, as well.

He grinned at her, "Yes, Ma'am."

They walked down the wagon trail, hand in hand, but quiet. Halfway down was a beautiful view of the ranch, but she ducked her head and refused to look, trying to tow him on. "Jo?"

She looked up at him, her face flaming with shame. "I don't like this, the way the hill falls down on the side of the road. I want to keep walking."

He allowed her to tug him along, but when the downhill side of the mesa was less steep he squeezed her hand. "I d-d-don't like it. Up hhhhhigh. Not even the b-b-bridge." He grimaced at the clipped, blocky phrases, but walking side by side and signing was hard and he'd proven that he couldn't slow down around her.

"Why? You loved rooftops and the bridge."

"Ssssspot got t-t-taken. Went cr-crrrr-crazy. Tried…t-t-to thhhhhhhhhhhrow me out the wwwwwindow. Eight stories up."

"Taken by the man that….owned Darcy?"

"Mmmhmm. He…he knnnnnnew it was me, but nnnnnnneeded to fffffight. I wwwouldn't." It hurt to think of that day, of exactly how off the rails Spot was. He slowly and carefully told her what he could while remembering it vividly. Eli shuddered. He could still feel the glass in the backs of his knees and the dig of his suspenders in his shoulders. She stared up at him, struck dumb by his story.

They were coming up the Avenue, the narrow wagon path between the pasture fences by then and the house was in sight. "You would have died," she whispered. "Two stories is all it takes."

He took a sidelong look at her, her eyes were dark and her shoulders shrugged up. "Nnnnnips s-s-saved me. P-p-pulled me up before mmmy buttons snnnnapped."

"That's what Spot was trying to stop when you were fighting? Turning back into that?"

"Mmhmm."

She stopped and stared at him. "After that, you came back here? After he tried to kill you? And you forgave him again yesterday, even though he lied to you about me?"

She took a deep breath and started rubbing at her scalp till her hair stuck out oddly. He watched her, trying not to smile. She always said that her scalp tingled when she got angry, and apparently it was still true. He stepped up and gently massaged her head. She looked up at him, glowering, somewhere between anger and tears. "Let me in. Why a-a-are you mmmad?" Her lip trembled and he cupped her face with his hands. "T-t-tell me."

"You're too good and I don't deserve you. I'm a monster in comparison, no better than Spot."

"No," he gritted. He was frustrated and knew he couldn't say what he wanted with words. 'Why would you say that?' he signed, after tapping her shoulder to bring her attention back.

"You don't know me," she warned. "You don't know what I'm capable of, what a monster I am."

'Wichita?' She grimaced, wrapping her arms around herself and nodded. 'Tell me. You know I won't do what Gordon did. I'm not Gordon.'

She looked up at him wearily. "You will know that I really and truly trust you when I can talk about…that with you. Not today, Eli." He pulled her in and kissed the top of her head, which she reluctantly allowed. "I'm going to go get washed up. I'll see you in the kitchen." She pulled away and walked up the ranch house steps pausing briefly when she saw Spot there, dozing in a kitchen chair. Even from the yard he saw the flare of anger in her dark eyes. Her decision was made in a split second and she shoved the dozing man so hard that he fell out of his chair before stomping into the house and slamming the front door after her.

Spot scrambled to get up turning to face the closed door before whipping back around to glare at Eli who was trying not to snigger. "What the hell was that for?" he yelled.

"T-told her about the wwwwindow."

Spot paled. "The tenement window?" he asked nervously, waiting for Eli to nod. "Yeah, that would do it. Give a guy a warning next time you decides to air out his dirty laundry in public."

Eli rolled his eyes and scowled up at him for a moment before cocking a brow. "What are you d-doing out here?" he asked. "D-darcy get mmmad at you?"

Spot sighed and stood to stretch, "I heard someone outside last night." Eli raised a brow, Spot looked a little off. "Don't give me that look, Asshole, I ain't crazy or hearing shit, there was someone walking around and around the house all night. My house and this one. Marta heard it too, she asked me to sit out here. I ain't seen no one or heard no one since," he looked at Eli with a hard expression. "It's Gordon, ain't no one else got reason to be prowling around here. He thought she'd come running back by now, and since she ain't he's trying to see her."

"You're c-c-crazy," Eli snorted and turned to go to his own house to wash up and put on some clean clothes.

"Keep an eye out, Trout. I might be crazy but I know him better than you do." Eli just waved dismissively over his shoulder. Things were finally looking up. He slept with JoAnna in his arms and she was able to separate her anger from him and put it where it belonged. He needed to think that things were going to be ok now.


	21. Chapter 21

The grey light of morning didn't give away anything about the heat of the day to come as Darcy, Jo and Marta prepared baskets of food and jugs of water with ginger and a bit of sugar and salt to quench the thirst of Fletcher and the the hired cattle hands who were gathered on the front porch. The women packed them fried chicken, boiled eggs and pickles from the pantry to keep them full until they arrived in Denver late the next day. Spot and Eli did all of the groundwork to get the herd that was being taken to auction ready for the sixty mile drive, neither one meeting the eyes of the hired hands who were very curious as to why they were hired when Fletch had two strong young men living and working on his property. The truth was they kept waking up to hearing footsteps outside the house. Undeniably human footsteps pacing the the hard packed dirt around the ranch house, the barn, the Conlon house and even Jim and Eli's little cabin. They'd all heard it by this time, and Fletcher wanted to keep his girls safe, so he left the two people he trusted them with above all others at the house and ignored the scrutiny of the local men. Jim led the herd out and the hired men followed, keeping the cattle in line. Fletcher kissed Marta long and hard, and Darcy couldn't help but blush and look away. "You sure y'all will be fine? I hate leaving you with that prowler hanging around."

"We've got the boys, and we've got Eli and Spot. You get those cows to market," Marta assured him. "Together, we can handle anything." She grinned cockily, "You'd really just be in the way if he decided to do something. The four of us don't really know how to let anyone else in to our attack plans." He frowned at her and she pouted apologetically.

"Please, don't let me come back to the sheriff on the front porch," he pleaded and winked up at Darcy. He pulled back and stared into her hazel eyes, letting anyone who could see know the depth of his heart and the breadth of his care for his family.

"Perfectly under control," Marta said, brushing his blond curls off his brow. "Get going, so you can come back." She kissed the tip of his nose and he gave another one of his endearing smiles and ran to jump on his horse and push him to a lope to catch up to the herd. Marta sighed and clapped her hands. "Come on ya bums, we got work to do. Will and Jesse, you have cows to milk, stalls to muck and a garden to weed and harvest. Eli, Spot, there's a dinner pail on the counter for you two and two water jugs. Get it and get your asses up the hill." She grinned at Eli, "Keep Spot away from the hives, huh? He's a real pansy when he gets stung." Trout smirked and Spot called her a number of dirty names under his breath which she ignored besides a slight raise of her tawny eyebrow. "Girls, we're canning all day, go stoke the fire and open up all the windows or it'll be hotter than the devil's balls in there by noon." She shooed the boys away to do their chores and scooped two year old Teddy into her arms to feed and change him. Darcy bounced Cooper as he fussed, ready to eat again. Spot took his son and held him on his shoulder cooing softly in his ear, calming his cries immediately. Never in a million years would Darcy have believed it if someone told her this would be her future. Never in a hundred million would Spot have believed it.

"Nice to see that someone around here likes me best," he grumbled as Cooper settled down, gurgling and grabbing at Spot's shirt collar.

"Only 'cause I ain't putting out for him right now," she answered with a seductive smirk.

"Maybe you'll put out for me later." Behind the flirtatious and snide look, a question was hiding. Would she let him back in? Did she trust him enough again to play with him again? The longer she waited, the more the mask came down, and like always he showed her the real man behind it. The one who tortured himself over his own actions and would be the last person to forgive himself. Those steel blue eyes started to look broken, and her heart wouldn't let her be the reason behind it. She sent him a saucy smirk, beckoning him closer with a crooked finger.

He leaned in, pressing a subtle kiss of thanks to her head. He was shaking. "You make it back tonight without pissing anyone off and I will reward you," she purred into his ear. "Generously." He groaned and kissed her with greedy lips until Cooper, smelling the proximity of his milk and his mother, protested again.

"I know it, Kid, I know!" Spot agreed, handing the baby back to her. "She's a tease and she's trying to kill us both." She grinned at him, noticing Eli and Jo over his shoulder as she opened her blouse to let Cooper get at what he wanted. He suckled and grunted happily, his little hand gripping her skin with uncanny strength. Her ever tactful husband watched on in awe. Darcy was never sure if he was so intrigued by the act of feeding a baby because there was a breast out for the world to see or if it was that her body could sustain something he helped make. While she wanted to think it was the latter, common sense said it was the former. Eli and Jo talked shyly, their cheeks red with nerves and the giddy anticipation of finally getting somewhere with one another. It was adorable and nauseating all at the same time, but she was happy for them. She liked having Jo around, it made her feel like she could be a sister again, make up for what she missed with her three little sisters. The star crossed lovers smiled at each other, looking up at each other through their eyelashes and talked quietly, each waiting for the other to be the brave one who made the first move. Darcy couldn't take it anymore. It slipped, her hand reached out and rested between Jo's shoulder blades pushing her gently. She tripped over her feet and stumbled right into Trout's waiting arms. From there, it only took a moment of awkward stammering before their lips were locked together. Eli turned those big blues up at Darcy and winked before letting his lids flutter closed to fall headlong into JoAnna's kiss. Darcy couldn't help the contented sigh that came out watching them. "That wasn't very nice," Spot growled into her ear, his voice more of a vibration than a sound, making her spine shiver and her skin pucker despite the warmth of the oncoming day.

"Sure it was," she answered, shifting Cooper in her arms. "Do you see either of them complaining?" He chuckled and gently pushed the whisps of soft, blonde hair on Cooper's head back. The baby grunted in displeasure at having his meal disrupted.

"Nah, you's right. You's the nice one. This," he grinned wickedly, "is not nice." He bounded down the stairs clapping Eli's shoulder heartily before dragging him away by his collar without a word.

"Long live the King of Brooklyn," Darcy muttered under her breath.

By the time they fed the children an early lunch, the mercury in the thermometer was pushing one hundred degrees of dry desert heat. The heat from the fire in the cast iron stove and the steam coming from the large canning pot pushed the heat inside well above that. By noon, the kitchen was so hot that their clothes hung limp from the steam in the air and the heat in the room. The boys had delivered two milk pails full of honey already but Spot said that was only the first hive. There were four more to go. As soon as he left, Jo threw down her towel that she was using to clean the jars with after Marta filled them and began opening the buttons on the bodice of her dress and wiggled her sticky arms out of the sleeves. As the breeze through the open kitchen door hit her bare arms she let loose a soft moan. Her chemise was sweaty and a little more see through than was proper, but it was just her friends and the babies. She flapped her skirt, trying to get the same kind of relief for her legs, while Marta and Darcy looked on in amusement. She looked at them shyly, before an impish smile spread across her face as she undid the bottom on it too and let it pool around her feet before giving it a kick over to the corner. Marta and Darcy shared a look before following suit, hanging their dresses over the backs of the kitchen chairs.

In their underwear and aprons they pressed on. Marta ladled honey, warm and soupy from the outside heat, into jars. Jo cleaned the outsides of them and put the lids on and Darcy put them into the big pot to seal. They canned and sealed seven gallons of honey over the course of the day, more than any of them could have imagined was possible. Darcy hadn't even seen that many jars of the same thing in the big mercantile stores back home.

"This is the last that he wants done up this way," Spot said, setting the last milk pail in the door. "He wants to do the rest in the other jars, the ones that you don't heat up tomorrow with the comb in them." He rolled his eyes and Darcy was immediately suspicious.

"What did you do?" she accused, wiping her hands on her apron. He looked over his wife, noticing her undressed state for the first time and swallowing hard, dragging his eyes up and down. After a long stop below her chin, he managed to look her in the eyes again smiling sheepishly.

"I didn't do nothing! He told me to shut up when I asked why anyone would want bee shit in their honey and I left it alone. I didn't get mouthy or nothing." He stared at her like a starved man at a banquet and she had to fight to keep a straight face.

"I'm checking with Trout." She raised an eyebrow at him in warning and crossed her arms over her chest. He tsked his tongue in disappointment and ducked back out the door. For a moment, no one said anything, they just went back to work. Darcy pulled a batch of jars out of the water bath and set them on a towel and checked the batch that came out before that one for popped lids, setting them aside. She was just tightening the last lid when a giggle stifled into a snort pulled her attention away. Both Marta and JoAnna were trying to hide their laughter. "What's funny?" she demanded.

Marta giggled wildly. "I wish that woulda worked when he was a kid! If I knew that all it took to make him behave was a little…" she shimmied her shoulders and wiggled her scantily clad hips, making Darcy blush and Jo laugh down to her belly, punctuated with little snorts, "…maybe he wouldn't have been such a pain in my ass growing up!" Marta and Darcy both stared at Jo as she laughed, it was the most of any emotion they'd seen from her besides tears and sadness. Most of the time she floated around in a strange state of numbness.

"Wouldn't…have worked," she choked out between fits of giggles and snorts. "No one wants to see their sister on the job." Her laughter stopped as abruptly as it started and her eyes widened as she realized what she said. It happened every few days as she became more and more comfortable around the other women, she'd say more than she meant to and then she'd clam up and make herself scarce so that she wouldn't have to say any more. But she didn't run this time around. She looked at them warily as she sucked in a deep breath through pursed lips and blew it back out to make the flyaway hairs unstick from her forehead. Her cheeks burned red as she tried to figure out how to face this problem.

"I didn't think you had any sisters," Marta said carefully.

"I don't," Jo answered, going back to her job, keeping her hands busy wiping away non-existent traces of honey from the jars. "I lived with a few girls in Wichita, before Gordon and they were sisters." Her discomfort at the subject permeated the air making it feel even more thick and hot and stifling. "They were all I had then." She tried to smile but her lip trembled and her brow furrowed. "We used to play games together at night, after my work was done and before they started." It was the most she'd ever said about the time between leaving New York and marrying Gordon. "We were all stuck there, so we were friends out of necessity. We'd play with liquor, because the games were always better when our tongues were loose."

There were no professions for women in any city of any size that let girls live together in close quarters without a chaperone keeping them decent and away from the dangers of alcohol and men. Except the one that Darcy feared most for gentle JoAnna. Her heart ached thinking of a sweet creature like Jo at the Fox with Clarice's girls. "Clarice," Darcy's voice said before she was really thinking about it, "the woman my Clarice is named for, used to tell me that the girls at The Fox would do the same on slow nights." She felt more than saw the realization dawn on Marta's face because she was too busy focusing on JoAnna's and gauging her reaction. Jo stared back levelly, looking almost relieved, like she had held it inside so long and was grateful to have it out of her, to share the burden. Darcy knew that feeling. Marta turned her back to them, unable to hide her shock or sadness at what Jo had been put through. "I never got to play, I was kept separate, but Clarice would come and visit me, take care of me when Mick went too far and I couldn't take care of myself anymore. She was a mother hen that one, taking care of everyone. Always." Marta's soft sob stopped Darcy and the small blonde wrapped her arms around the tall redhead from behind. She'd never forgive herself for all Clarice did for her. Jo's head tilted to the side and her slender dark brows knitted together in concern. "Clarice died saving Marta," Darcy explained. "That's why we named our Clarice in her honor. Marta never got the chance to thank her before she gave herself up as bait."

"Jenny was not like that," Jo whispered. "She promised to take care of me and Edith and Maude, but she didn't. She only took care of herself."

Marta shook Darcy off of her back and wiped her face quickly, trying to rub away any sign that she was ever upset. "I say we play one of your little games," she said, painting a cheery smile onto her face. "Loosen up some tongues and get some secrets out in the open without getting so sad. We're just about done here for today, the kids are taken care of. Lets have some fun!"

"I caught your son when you gave birth," Darcy sneered, "you have no secrets from me."

Marta laughed, "True enough, but there is one among us who still has her secrets. Come on, let an old lady feel young again. I never had friends when I was young enough to do stuff like this!" She went to the pantry and got out two bottles of whiskey, one a quarter full and the other unopened.

She swirled the amber liquid around, staring at the bottle, battling with herself. Spot told his wife about how quickly she took to trying to soothe her feelings with alcohol and that he warned her against it. It was nice to see her take it to heart. Darcy stepped closer, "We ain't trying to solve the world's problems with a bottle, Sweets," she murmured, pulling Jo close into her side. Marta saw Jo's struggle and pressed in on her other side. "Just cooling down after a long, hot day with friends and a bit of giggle water." Darcy grinned at Marta, who stuck her tongue out. "So long as you know the difference, you'll be ok. If you don't want to drink it, that's fine too."

She looked back and forth between Marta and Darcy. "What am I missing?"

Darcy handed Marta the nearly finished bottle of whiskey with a grin. "Oh, you'll see." Marta swiped the bottle out of her hand with a scowl. "Let's just say that Miss Tough Girl Gatcyk gets the giggles like a stupid school girl when she's on the sauce."

"Watch it, Underwear Girl," Marta sputtered as she tipped back a big swig. "And that's Mrs. Tough Girl Fletcher, thank you very much."

"Or what?" The little blonde taunted. "You gonna sock me in the face? They shoulda named you Giggles, not Kisser. You're such a teatotler, my grandmother could drink you under the table!" She knew exactly how to push Marta to get her to do what she wanted. A drunken, giggling, chatty Marta could charm the claws off of a jungle cat, and hopefully the past out of a very scared and sad JoAnna, so that she could start to heal.

"Kisser?" Jo asked, obviously confused by their names for each other.

"Go on, 'never have I ever…'" Darcy coaxed.

"Never have I ever heard why Marta is called Kisser," Jo repeated.

Darcy sniggered as she took her first drink, letting the sharp liquid slide down her throat. Marta took her drink too and said, "It was my newsie name. When I ran away from the convent, I had to prove to the boys that they couldn't push me around. When they got mouthy, I punched them in the mouth and they never saw it coming because I'm left handed. They kept getting knocked in the Kisser and it turned into my name." The conversation went on, regaling Jo with how she knocked Scatter's tooth out.

"Never have I ever slept on the streets," Darcy said. It was the truth. She was too afraid of Mick to run away. Both Marta and Jo drank and Marta shot Darcy an angry look, not liking how she was baiting Jo for information that she might not want to give, but Jo took her drinks placidly and waited for Marta to go.

"Never have I ever…Shit. There is nothing I haven't done, girls….I'm an old woman! The things I haven't done I don't want to do!"

"Bullshit!" Darcy cried loudly. "You're not old, you're thirty-one and you did jack shit living in the lodging house." She grinned though. "But then again, so is this. Never have I ever been forced to do something with a man after money was exchanged." Jo drank and Darcy took two drinks since she lied.

"All right, never have I ever been naked in public," Marta said.

Jo and Darcy drank quickly. Her eyebrows raised at at the woman she thought of as her sister. "Do you really want to know?" Darcy asked.

"Ew, no. Keep that secret to yourself!" She turned to Jo, "But I do with you."

Jo shrugged and her eyes lit up as the tinies smirk tilted her lips, "Ladies don't talk about such things," and stuck her nose in the air like the prim upper class girls she grew up with while Marta and Darcy ribbed and booed at her prudery. They went around and things started to get absurd as they ran out of things that they had never done. Marta was giggling like a madwoman, but Jo just got more and more quiet and contemplative. It came around to be her turn again after awhile and she shocked them again. "Never have I ever taken a life," she said quietly and took two drinks, signaling her lie. Marta and Darcy looked at each other carefully.

"How do we do this?" Marta asked quietly. "We'll be sick if we a take a drink for every life."

"I think one big one will do it for all of them," Darcy answered, tipping back for an extra long swig. Marta did the same as the sun began to sink low behind the Rockies.

"How many?" Jo asked, staring at Darcy.

She sighed and went to pick Cooper up out of his cradle, needing something in her arms to comfort her. "We're not sure. Eli told you about the tenement, right?"

"He told me Spot tried to kill him, and that Spot was taken by the man who kept you. That's it."

Marta took another long drink. "Neither one of us stabbed or shot anyone. We didn't choke them or drown them or do anything like that, but we set that building on fire with a lot of the gang members still inside. There were a few who died beforehand, Darcy knocked Mick out and we thought he was dead, but he got back up and Spot had to kill him to get Trout and I out. I'm not sure how many died, maybe ten or fifteen. It doesn't matter that I didn't pour the gas or drop the match. It was my plan, my fire, my mess that we were cleaning up. I had those men killed." She suddenly looked older, more tired and world weary.

"You took two drinks, Jo," Darcy said quietly. "Care to share with the rest of the class?"

"No," she answered. "I think that's enough." She drifted over to the doorway with her arms wrapped around her ribs and her eyes closed, letting the breeze wash over her. Marta rested her head on the table for a minute before popping back up with a slow loopy grin on her face.

"Never have I ever slapped Spot Conlon," she hiccuped and sniggered to herself as her head dropped back down, her eyes heavy lidded. Darcy was flooded with relief from the startling silence they'd been dumped into and laughed too, grabbing the bottle for one last drink. The rattling of the approaching wagon pulled Jo out of her reverie and she took the bottle from Darcy's hand. The blonde watched JoAnna tip back one last drink and smiled when she winked. Jo put Teddy and Clarice to bed together while Darcy nursed Cooper again. Marta was asleep at the table when Spot came in from outside. He shook his head at the three of them before throwing Marta's arm over his shoulder and pulling her to her feet.

"C'mon Kiss, lets get you to bed," he said gently as he helped her to her feet and supported her stumbling gait up the stairs while she chuckled at him. When he came back down, he smiled at Jo. "He's in the barn putting the horses up. Go lick the honey off of him." She balked at that but smiled anyway and went out the door. "Honey goes pretty good with whiskey, ya know," he said to Darcy, leaning over and kissing the top of her head.

"No amount of honey could make you sweet, Spot," she heckled. He scowled and she grinned, tipping her head back for a real kiss. When his mouth left her's, she said, "But that's ok, because I like my whiskey soured with lemons better." With a roguish grin, he took Cooper and his cradle back to their house, but came back looking spooked with the baby still in his arms.

"Have Jess keep all the kids in one room together." His voice was a quiet command, fraught with concern. "Tell him not not let any of them out, no matter what. Send Will to get the sheriff."

"What's going on?" she hissed. He wanted to get outside and see more, but she needed more information. "Spot, I can't help if I don't know what's happening. Tell me what you saw."

"Gordon's back. He's got Trout and Jo in the barn and she's crying. Do what I said Darcy. I love you and I need you to listen to me and stay safe. Take care of the babies, send Will, get some rifles and meet me outside." He kissed her long and hard and she could feel the possible good bye in it.

She grabbed his arms, wanting to feel his skin one last time before their world was destroyed yet again, "I'll see you in a few minutes. Go help them, I have your back."


	22. Chapter 23

Eli smiled, listening to the girls giggle drunkenly inside the house. He watched through the window for a moment as Spot practically carried Marta up the stairs to bed while Darcy nursed Cooper and Jo pulled on her pink skirt before carrying Teddy upstairs with Clarice trailing behind. Her chemise was nearly see through with sweat and he had to make himself get back to work, think of something else because she looked so beautiful. He unhitched Barnaby and Ramona, the matched pair of large red quarter horses that Fletcher had to pull the wagon, tying Ramona to the hitching post outside of the barn and leading Barnaby in to take of his bridle and harness. He could tell something was wrong as soon as he stepped inside and Barnaby puffed out his breath and stamped his hoof, sensing it too. "Easy," Eli breathed, rubbing the horse's velvety nose and tied him up in the hallway. The word was as much for him as it was the horse. He kept his eyes moving and his ears open as he pulled off the girth and trace and replaced the bridle and bit with a simple rope halter, hanging the leather pieces on a long brass hook fastened to the wall. A scuffling noise pulled his attention to one of the stalls as he began to brush out Barnaby's deep auburn coat and he sucked in a breath. "T-takes a lot mmmmore to sneak up on mme than that," he said in his typical slow mumble, trying to keep the stutters and stammers at bay.

Gordon stood up, his cloudy blue eyes looking sunken and dark, his face haggard and pinched. "Where's my wife?" He hissed, stepping closer. Eli carefully kept the horse between he and Flaherty, seeing the rifle hanging limply from his hand.

"House. Shhhhhhhe doesn't wwwwwwant to ssssssee you."

Gordon's pale skin flushed with anger and his hand tightened around the stock of the rifle. "I don't care what she wants! She's my wife! My property! She can't just leave me because of you."

"But she did." The simple answer pushed Gordon from anger to rage and the small man rushed forward. Eli quickly released the horse, who trotted outside to join his mate before Eli let Gordon get a few punches in, let him blow of some steam in hopes that he would just go back home once he realized it would do no good. It seemed to be working until JoAnna's soft gasp sounded from the door, the smile that Eli knew was for him wilting on her face. Her voice, her face, her state of undress, maybe even her very presence fueled a new surge of fervor in Gordon and he dug his shoulder into Eli's gut, driving him back. Trout had to give it to him, he was a smart fighter, not letting his small stature hold him back. But Trout was better. He had ten years with only his fists to keep him safe, ten years with Spot as a sparring partner. He would have gotten the upper hand but Jo rushed in and planted herself between them, her back to Eli and her arms spread protectively, with a rasp from Fletcher's tool box in her hand .

"You will not hurt him," she growled, brandishing the metal bar like a weapon. Eli smirked proudly, placing his hands on her tense shoulders and standing as tall and broad as he could. "You don't belong here Gordon. The sheriff knows it's you that's been here in the night. He'll arrest you."

"Get away from him," Gordon demanded in a low voice. "You're coming home."

"No, Gordon. I'm not going anywhere." Her hand raise and rested atop Eli's. "I'm home." His face turned deep red as he stared at her, still not used to her defiance, before swinging the rifle, connecting the heavy wood stock with her ribs. She flew out of Eli's hands with a gasp, curling up to protect her bruised body as the rasp disappeared into the hay that covered the floor.

Eli plowed forward, but Gordon was ready, swinging the rifle upward. It hit hard under his chin, throwing Eli off of his feet and into the air. His feet hadn't even touched the ground when Gordon's narrow shoulder dug into his gut again, driving him back against the back wall and right into the long, brass hook that was supposed to hold Ramona's harnesses. His breath left his body as the six inch hook pierced into his flesh, dragging up the bone of his shoulder blade and exiting in the soft tissue under his collar bone, leaving him hanging on the wall like a marionette puppet. Gordon looked on in horrified awe as Eli's booted feet scrambled, trying to relieve the pressure of the hook under his collar bone. His toes barely reached the ground. JoAnna looked up, still clutching her ribs and screamed, scrambling to her her feet to try to get to him, but Gordon dropped the rifle and grabbed her. "Let go!" she squealed, her eyes locked on Eli's. "He's hurt, let go! You can't just leave him like that! Eli!" She fought her husband like a madwoman, but he pulled her back again and again.

Gordon's arm wrapped around her body and pressed into the deep bruise he put on her ribs and she stiffened and stilled in his arms. "You're mine, Dove," he whispered harshly, keeping his eyes on Eli's. Eli could hardly focus on anything but the pressure threatening to snap the thin bone that ran from his breastbone to his shoulder. The foreign object rammed into his body paled in comparison to that pressure and he groped feebly with his left hand, trying to make it stop until he heard Gordon speak again. "You're coming home with me and we'll leave, go find somewhere without so many busybodies. I'll take you away where he'll never find you and where you will be mine again."

Her dark eyes met Eli's blue ones and she stared at him while she considered her options. His mind screamed that she didn't need options, she just needed to stay here with him, but he said nothing. The choice had to be hers. "If I go," she began in a hushed, trembling voice, "we'll go far away? You won't hurt him or any of them anymore?"

"First thing in the morning," he agreed, raunchily licking her neck with his dull eyes on Eli and a smirk on his lips. "Tonight even, if you want, my love."

"If you let me get him down, I'll go." She grimaced against his touch, unable to meet Eli's eyes while Gordon worked his mouth over her skin. Eli protested with a grunt and an anguished yell, as the jerking of his body threatened to break him. "I'll get Spot, you can hide and once they're in the house, we'll go home."

"Show me that you mean it first," Gordon challenged, his eyes darkening with lust. "Show me that you're mine, right here, and I'll let you." Her eyes widened and her cheeks paled as she swallowed thickly and forced herself to look at Eli. He shook his head, pleading her silently not to do it. He couldn't watch that. Her hesitation angered Gordon and he pulled away. She flinched, ready for a blow that didn't come. Instead, Gordon grabbed the gun again, ramming the butt into Eli's temple. The force of his large body going limp snapped the brass hook off of it's mount moments after his collarbone finally gave way and he slumped to the barn floor on his face, unable to move but clinging to consciousness. She screamed again and Eli heard her footsteps as she tried to get to him. "Show me, or I'll do it again. Show me who you belong to or he gets another hit. Do you think he'll last?"

She closed her eyes and began to undo the buttons on her skirt, letting it drop to her feet as Eli pushed himself up. He groaned and looked away and Gordon peeled the chemise from her body. The rifle lay forgotten on the hay covered floor. Pulling with his left arm and pushing with uncoordinated feet, he moved his heavy body across the floor and gripped the weapon. Instinct allowed him to get the gun, but couldn't force his body to work enough to use it. What a cruel trick. He dropped it and looked wearily to where Gordon's hands were touching everything that he held dear but had hardly touched himself. Her arms were crossed over her chest in an attempt to hide her nudity but her eyes were open and on him. "Its ok, Love," she murmured. "You don't want that kind of red in your ledger anyway. The guilt would eat you up. Let me do this for you. For all of you."

"You ain't gotta save us," Spot's voice snapped from the door. "Not from the likes of him." His icy eyes scanned the room, falling on his friend and glossing with concern. "Trout, you's bleeding. You all right?" Eli pulled his legs in and let his knees fall to each side, folding over himself so that his forehead nearly touched the ground. Blood slid hotly down his face, and he watched it drip on the floor. "Talk to me, Trout." He could feel the breeze cooling the trails of blood down the front and back of his shirt and let out a shaking breath.

"Jo," was all he could get out.

"I got her," Spot said. "You just stay awake, you got me?" Eli wagged his head as best he could. "Good. Flaherty, you need to get ya dirty hands off of my sister."

"Your sister," Gordon snorted, not taking his hands off of her.

"Yeah, that's right," Spot countered. "Part of my family and you don't hurt my family unless you's ready to pay the price."

"Did your sister tell you she's a murdering whore? She doesn't deserve your protection."

"I'm not a whore!" Jo yelped, pushing away from Gordon. "I never sold myself! I just cleaned the rooms. I just was so hungry and alone." She pleaded with Eli to understand, but he was beyond emotion, barely hanging on to himself.

"You ain't gotta explain nothing, Jo," Spot soothed. "You did what you hadda do to survive. Right Trout?" Eli nodded again, his head seemed to be getting heavier every moment.

Jo sobbed, her eyes still locked on his. "I was cleaning a room on the second floor and it stunk to high heaven so I opened the window as soon as I got in there. It was a boarding house, but it was really a brothel. The man came in and locked the door while I was making the bed. He put the key in his pocket and said that Jenny gave it to him, that he paid for me, paid extra to be my first." The churning in Eli's stomach was becoming violent as he listened. A soft sob from the door made him raise his eyes. Darcy stood there, pain etched in her girlish face. Spot held his hand out to her and she gripped it tightly as Jo kept talking. "Jenny sold me to make an extra few bucks, just like she did to Maude and Edith." She closed her eyes, squeezing them tightly and he knew she was trying not to see the memory, but her vivid, artistic mind wouldn't allow that. "He….made me… do things to him. He threatened me, he hurt me and when he was done he stood there with a smile on his face. I was so mad. I shoved him. I pushed him and I yelled, and his pants were still around his ankles. He…started to fall, tripped on his trousers… he almost caught himself on the curtains, but they gave way. Out he went into the street. He snapped his neck." She looked at Eli. "It only takes two floors." He gagged, but managed to control himself, shutting his eyes.

"That wasn't your fault, Jo," Darcy said quietly. "He was hurting you, you couldn't know that a little push would make that happen. It was an accident. A terrible accident."

"Wouldn't matter to us even if you meant it," Spot gritted. "We take care of our own." He dropped Darcy's hand, holding it out to Jo and taking a tentative step forward. "Come on, Jojo, come home. We'll take care of him." Eli felt himself begin to breathe as her foot moved towards Spot, but Gordon reached out and dug his fingers into the tender bruise blooming across her rib cage making her cry out.

"She is mine," he hissed. "Not one step closer, Conlon."

"Take care of my Trout," she wheezed, staring at Spot.

"No!" Spot bellowed as spots began to overtake Eli's vision. The barn seemed to be tilting back and forth like a boat on a restless sea. "You ain't giving up like that!"

She smiled sadly, "If it means keeping him away from all of you? From Clairey and the boys? Yes. I will. I take care of my own too. He will never let me go."

"He will if he's dead," Darcy growled.

Gordon dug his fingers into her flesh again and she gasped, her brow furrowing in anger. She turned her head to him, glaring hotly. "Let me say good bye." Though she phrased it as a request, asking permission, her tone told everyone that it was an order. "I owe him a good bye this time. I won't fight you." He stared at her for a moment, trying to see if she was lying, but she stared back cooly. He snarled and roughly pushed her to the floor. She slid, her bare skin catching and scraping as she hissed out a quiet, "son of a bitch!" under her breath. When she sat up her raw skin was pricked with blood. Her eyes barely grazed the wound though, instead focusing on the floor, her hand cautiously digging into the straw. As she crawled towards him, they darted between her hand that she kept under the straw and his face. Her gentle hands eased under his arms, turning him slightly so he could lean his back against a stall. He whimpered and groaned at the movement and she whispered, "I know, I'm sorry." He dipped his head forward and rested on her shoulder, breathing in the rose, sweat laced with honey, and whiskey smell of her soft skin. His breath trembled and his body was beginning to shake. She kissed his injured shoulder, his neck, his cheeks and his eyes before pulling back to search his gaze that was getting hazier by the minute. "Forgive me," she breathed into his ear before grasping his face in both hands. She could see his focus fading. "Tell me you still love me even though you know what I did." Her hand moved up to wipe away the blood still steadily trickling from the laceration at his temple. "Forgive me for killing that man."

He swallowed, trying to gather the words in his sluggish head. "He…he hurt you," he grunted and tried to smile. "P-p-proud of you."

"Now forgive me again so I can be strong for this."

"Wha'for?"

She gently leaned his head back against the wall, staring deeply into his eyes. "Promise you will. I can't do it if you won't forgive me."

Out of habit, he tried to make their sign, their private declaration of love, the string between their hearts, but gasped as the slightest muscle twitch in his right hand caused him pain. The left one didn't hurt, but wasn't much more cooperative. He struggled to tuck down his middle and ring fingers and touch his thumb to his chest, but couldn't complete the motion to connect his chest to hers. She enveloped his big hand, still dirty from the long day that seemed so long ago, between hers. Her hands were soft, still damp and wrinkled like raisins from holding a wet towel all day. She tried to tuck down his index finger but he fought her, his eyes glassy and dull but still staring into hers as intensely as he could manage. She looked down and smiled as he pressed first his pinky, then his index finger and thumb and finally his thumb and pinky gently into the flesh of her palm. I.L.Y for 'I love you.' She nodded and touched his thumb to his chest, then pulled it to her. The gentle brush of his pinky on the bare skin of her chest made her skin pop up in goosebumps. He sighed in exhaustion, wishing he could kiss her and as if she heard him, she pulled his hand to her mouth. "I love you, Eli," she whispered so quietly that the sound wouldn't carry any farther than the two of them. "You stay awake, you hear me? Don't you dare close those eyes. When this is all over, Darcy will fix you up. Promise you'll forgive me." He nodded, resigning himself to losing her all over again, and raised his eyes to Spot who was watching JoAnna with a mix or horrified curiosity and pity. But it changed the second she stood up, her arms at her side, no longer caring to cover herself. Spot's face went from pity and sadness to respectful in a flash. "I'm ready now, Gordon," she said, trepidatiously. "Please hand me my clothes. Private property or not, I'm not walking through the prairie half naked."

Gordon picked up her skirt and chemise off the barn floor brusquely and held them out to her while Eli watched through faltering, muddied vision. It happened so fast, but to him it played out slowly. She reached out for her things, but let them fall back to the floor when Gordon released them, grabbing his arm, yanking him towards her with all her might and driving the rasp, the teeth that chewed up her skin when she fell, the thing she carefully concealed under the hay as she crawled, into his ribs. Gordon stared at her bug eyed and shaking before coughing a splatter of blood into her face and falling to his knees.

Eli watched, uncomprehending, as Gordon fell on top of JoAnna's pink skirt, the pale, peachy fabric greedily soaking in his deep red blood. Blood flowed from the wound and also from Gordon's mouth and nose as he drowned on his own life. His breathing labored, then gurgled, then ceased all together as Jo's knees buckled under her, dropping her to the floor. Spot grabbed her chemise before it could be stained with blood and slipped it over her head, gently dressing her like a child. Her eyes were empty, her body only functioning enough to keep her upright. Darcy stepped up, pale and shaking and checked for a pulse in Gordon's neck before throwing a tarp from the workbench over him. She stepped towards Eli and knelt down next to him. "Heya," she soothed in that hypnotic voice she saved for special occasions, inspecting his head first. "How ya feeling?"

"C-c-c-cold," he mumbled through chattering teeth. "There's a c-c-coat hook in mmmmmy shoulder."

She smiled, "Is that what that is? And here I thought you were just starting a new fashion trend." She checked his eyes, touched his skin, did everything but actually check the wound in his shoulder. "You're going into shock, Sweets. That's why you're cold. That hook is beyond my skill level, but Will went to get the doctor and Sheriff Cruz awhile ago. He rode out on Barnaby since you were smart enough to let him out." She smiled tightly. "You did good, my friend. You did so good. Stay with us while we wait, you hear?"

"E-e-everyone's worried about my hhhhhearing," he tried to joke, but it only earned him a snort from Darcy. "Jo?"

Darcy rolled her eyes, "Would you stop it, you silly ass? You're impaled and you're worried about everyone but you!" He glared at her as best he could and she sighed. "She's right behind me with Spot. She's in a bit of shock too, but she'll be ok."

"W-w-want JoAnna," he mumbled as his eyelids got heavy.

Spot knelt next to his wife with Jo in his arms and set her down next to Eli. "She wouldn't say nothing except to ask for you, Trout." He shoved her lax body in next to his friend and Darcy lifted Eli's left arm to help him tuck it around her. Eli couldn't hold on any longer. His eyes closed and he drifted into darkness, listening to Spot and Darcy murmur to one another. At least, if this was it, he got to hold her one more time.


	23. Chapter 24

Along with the wound from the impaled coat hook, Eli had a cracked jaw and deep laceration at his temple, both with heavy bruising surrounding them. The doctor put ten stitches in his temple but had to leave the wound from the hook open so that it could be kept clean. Eli was at serious risk for infection and would need to be watched closely. The doctor fashioned a cast that left his shoulder open to be cleaned, but kept his arm from moving so that his broken bone could heal. He had a thick band of plaster winding around his chest with a strap over his uninjured shoulder to keep it from sliding down his body. His bicep and wrist were both bound to the band around his chest so that his arm was completely immobilized. He'd only been awake for a few moments here and there since he lost consciousness in the barn while they waited for the doctor and those moments had been tense at best. The only thing that seemed to register in his brain was the band of plaster around his wrist. It was pitiful watching him whimper and struggle, knowing that somewhere deep in his head, Trout was reliving the time he spent locked up and alone. There were other times, when he was a little more lucid where he was fighting them, yelling angrily, but making no sense. He knew he was handcuffed and didn't understand why.

Spot stood in the doorway of JoAnna's bedroom, watching for any sign of life and lucidity in Eli, JoAnna stirred in her sleep in the armchair under the window. Her face crumpled in pain as she moved. Gordon cracked one of her ribs and bruised a few others on one side of her body and the rasp that she fell on left the other side scraped raw and stiff. He didn't know how she was sleeping in that chair. He shifted his gaze back to Trout, whose brow was furrowed again. He scrubbed his face and his stomach growled. "How long has it been since you ate anything?" JoAnna asked quietly, looking up at him through dull, shadowed brown eyes.

"I'm fine," he answered shortly.

She rolled her eyes. She was trying not to move her body at all, gripping the arms of the chair until her fingers turned white with the strain. "He told me once that you don't eat when you're upset. You were upset all the time back then, weren't you? I thought maybe you were just scrawny or you were trying to be tough, but you couldn't make yourself eat." He looked away glowering but could still feel her eyes on him. This was the part of her that always made him nervous, the part that saw past the persona, the façade and seemed to see him for exactly who and what he really was without even trying and then had the gall to point out to him all the things he didn't like in there. "You going hungry wont help him."

"And you being in pain and exhausted wont either, go sleep for a bit in Marta's room. I'll come get you if he wakes up."

She stared at him, but didn't move. "You called me your sister. You called me as Jojo like Clarice does, like a pet name."

He groaned, he was hoping she wouldn't remember that. "Guilty on both charges," he admitted. "What of it?" She tried to sit up, but gasped and fell back, breathing deeply through her nose to ease the protest her ribs made at the movement. It never would have occurred to him to help her in their former lives, but in this one, he stepped forward and held a hand out to her. With a tight smile and a small nod she let him slowly pull her so she was sitting upright. "I never thought such a tiny bone could make such a big stink until I cracked my first rib." She nodded in agreement.

"Why did you do that for me? Say that about me?"

He hunkered down, squatting in front of her and stared earnestly into her face and shrugged . "You grew on me; I guess I just got used to you being a part of our life here." That was as close to the truth as he could get to on his own. Feelings weren't his strong suit. Impulses and observations were what he thrived on, what he used to navigate the world. Feelings were unreliable.

"Is that the truth?" she asked.

His very empty stomach seemed to drop. "Yeah," he answered with a break in his voice. "You finally managed to thump it into my stupid, thick skull that him having you don't mean that he will get rid of me." His eyes dropped to the floor and his fingers absently played with the leather lace on his boot. He was surprised to find a smirk on her face when he looked up.

"Awwww," she crooned, "Spot Conlon's got little, tiny feelings! How sweet!"

"Brat."

"Jerk," she retorted with a giggle that made him smile even though he didn't want to. A long, low moan from the still form on the bed stopped their teasing and banter and turned the reluctant smile on Spot's face to a wide grin.

"He's coming to just to see us get along," he laughed. "He'd never believe that shit if he didn't see it with his own eyes."

"He probably felt the shift in the very fabric of the universe caused by you being nice for more than fifteen seconds," she teased and he snarled comically at her, but she just giggled and held her hands up to ask for his assistant getting up just so she could sink down on the mattress next to her Eli.

She tucked her hand into Eli's uninjured one and rested the other on the trapped one, hoping to stem the panic that he kept waking up in by drawing him in with her voice and her soothing touch early. "Eli," she whispered in his ear. "Eli, wake up." He shifted again and his breath caught as he noticed that his hand couldn't move, but she squeezed his fingers. "You're safe in Marta's house. Spot's here, I'm here, Marta's just downstairs. It's time to wake up, Love. Come along, open your eyes, Darling." His brow furrowed as if he was listening to her and trying to understand what she was saying. His eyelashes fluttered, fighting against the light. Spot drew the curtains before sinking back into the armchair to wait. She waved her hand, gesturing at him to talk.

He cleared his throat nervously and rubbed his palms against his thighs. "You better wake up soon, Trout. Me and JoAnna is getting downright chummy while you's sleeping over there. We might actually be friends by the time you manage to open an eye."

Eli's dark brow furrowed even deeper and and grimaced as he tried to speak, managing a muddled but unmistakable, "Bullshit."

Spot's laughter threw him back into the armchair as Eli managed to drag his eyelids upwards. The left was still swollen from the hit to his temple, but was all the way open and he was calm and looking around for the first time. "Heya Sleeping Beauty," Spot teased. "Nice of you to join the party." Trout tried to retort, but the pain in his jaw stopped him and he tried to touch the tender, black and blue skin under his chin. Again his breath caught and his skin paled as his hand was stopped by the cast. "It ain't handcuffs," Spot snapped, not meaning to be rough, but not willing to let his friend hurt himself further because he was panicking and trapped half in a dream. "Look at me!" he ordered, sitting on the other side of the bed and glaring deeply into Eli's frantic face. "Would I let you get handcuffed?" Eli's eyes darted around, still not sure what was real and what was memory. "You see any coppers with busted heads around you?" Eli shook his head no and swallowed loudly, "If someone tried to cuff you, you think I wouldn't knock their skull in? You are not handcuffed, it's a cast to keep that broken bone in your shoulder from poking out. Now settle down before I knock you back out for your own good." Eli turned his eyes to Jo, questioning her and she nodded, assuring him silently that it was all right.

They gave him a moment to settle his nerves before he clumsily signed for help sitting up. Spot pulled him up and Jo banked pillows behind him before she took a seat at his hip and Spot returned to the chair. They explained his injuries and the long period of rest the the doctor insisted he have while they did everything in their power to fight infection in the puncture wound in his shoulder, but he didn't seem to be listening. Instead he stared at the skirt of her pink dress, the same one she'd been wearing the day Gordon died. Jo spent hours at the sink while Darcy and the doctor cleaned Trout's wounds and waited for the plaster to set. She scoured that pink poplin until her hands were raw and managed to get nearly every blood stain out of it. Trout wrapped his thick fingers in the fabric, feeling it and testing it before his hand returned to her face, his thumb tracing the dark circles under her eyes. She smiled, yawning deeply and he tugged gently at her arm, pulling her down beside him where she rested her cheek against his bicep and quickly fell asleep. He watched her silently, letting her get into a deep sleep before he looked at Spot expectantly.

"You remember anything?" Spot asked quietly and Eli nodded in answer making a sign for 'everything.' "You can't shut her out like you did me after the tenement. It ain't fair to her; she can't take that rejection. You promised."

'I won't. It's not the same,' Eli answered, glaring at his feet.

"Ain't it?"

'She never tried to kill me,' but he wouldn't look Spot in the face.

"That ain't it and it wasn't it then either because you fought right by my side for another hour after that. It was only after we got Marta out that you shut down on me. What really happened then and what's going on now?"

'Why…' Trout started and faltered, looking down at Jo's sleeping face, 'why couldn't I kill them. They were hurting people, people I love, and I couldn't do it. I should have been the one who stabbed Mick, but you had to because I just…couldn't. And in the barn…'

"In the goddamned barn you had a six inch piece of brass stuck in your body and a cracked skull, the fact that you got your hands on the damn gun is impressive. If you had managed to shoot it you probably would have shot her, not him. Cut yourself some goddamned slack." He got up and started to pace, shoving back his blonde hair over and over as he moved. "And Mick, Mick was never your fight to begin with. You shouldn't have even been there!"

'Marta's my family too!' Trout signed with such fervor that he shook himself with the force of it, making him groan in pain. 'And so are you, Asshole. I had every right to be there.' A smudge of bright red bloomed on the outside of the bandage at his shoulder.

Spot sighed and fell back into the chair. "That ain't what I meant. I just meant that Mick wanted me and Marta, not you. It wasn't your job to kill Mick, you did what you was supposed to do and focused on getting Marta out. You's a bang up fighter, Trout, ain't no one can say otherwise, but you ain't a killer. 'Sides, you'd have torn yourself to shreds if you had offed him. Either of them. It just ain't in you."

'Why?' he asked again. 'I should have protected her. She had to do it herself.'

"She needed to do it herself anyway," Spot said and Trout looked up at him, horrified at the thought. "It was her fight, not yours. She had to tell Gordon to shove off her own self, and when he wouldn't listen, she did what hadda be done." Trout looked away, disgusted at his own weakness. "She couldn't have had you while he was still right there, Trout. It would have been wrong. He needed to be gone and he refused to take the easy way, the smart way out. She had to do it to prove to herself that he didn't have no power over her no more. Otherwise she just would have kept torturing herself while she tried to love you, and you both would have suffered because of it. It don't make you less of a man…just makes her a better woman."

"Sh-sh-she deserves better," Trout mumbled through a jaw that didn't want to move.

"Ain't no such thing," Spot declared easily. "You's the best there is. Ain't just anyone who would keep fighting along the asshole who held him out an eighth story window, or gets stabbed with a coat hook and keeps trying to fight the guy threatening his girl, or hires a skiptrace to find his girl when he can't buy new shoes for himself." Trout's brow furrowed and he gently pulled his arm out from between his body and JoAnna's. He felt his forehead and the pulse point in his neck with deep concern etched in his broad face. "What's wrong? You need something?" Spot asked in a panic, jumping to his feet, "I'll get Darcy."

'Just trying to figure out if I'm hallucinating, since you are never that sappy in real life,' he answered with a smirk.

"Smartass," Spot growled and his stomach seemed to agree. Eli frowned at him knowing exactly why his stomach was growling. "Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm going. You hungry? Of course you's hungry, you's been asleep for four days. I'll be back in a bit with food." He rushed out and down the stairs stopping at the bottom to catch his breath and try to slow his heart.

Fletcher had arrived home late the night before and stood in the kitchen with the girls when he got there. "Darcy," Spot said quietly, "can I have something to eat please?" They all stopped what they were doing and stared at him before the girls burst into action. Darcy came to him first and kissed him.

"You know I hate it when you do that," she murmured. "Don't scare me like that again." He wouldn't look at her. "I take it he's awake then?"

"He's awake, she's finally asleep," he answered. "Everything is going to be ok." She smiled at him and pushed him into a chair at the table and put a ridiculously full plate of food in front of him.

Fletch sat down next to him. "How is he?"

Spot shrugged, stuffing a bite of sandwich in his mouth. "Go see for yourself," he mumbled around the mouthful. Fletcher took a tray from Marta's hands and started up the stairs with it. Spot ate slowly until he started to feel sick from having gone so long without food. Darcy came up behind him and wrapped her arms around his shoulders as he pushed the plate away.

"Spot," she admonished.

"I'll get more later," he snapped rubbing at his abdomen that already felt stuffed like a Christmas goose. "I'm going back up with Trout."

"Spot," she repeated, standing her ground. "Talk to me."

"I done enough talking."

"Not to me you haven't," she said, sitting in his lap and daring him to try to get up. "Now talk." He glared at her, but she wasn't afraid of that look. She was one of three people alive that didn't care in the slightest about that glare. She glared right back, setting her pointed little jaw.

"I shouldn't have left him alone," he said. "We both shoulda been out there and Gordon never woulda done that to him."

She smiled and patted his hollow cheek. "You silly ass, there was no reason to think that Trout couldn't handle himself. From what Jo said, he was doing just fine on his own until she got out there and distracted both of them. Gordon was crazy. You can't predict what crazy people will do."

"Don't patronize me," he snarled. "Can I go now?"

She stood up and pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth before stepping out of his way and letting him jog back up the stairs. Fletcher sat in the chair he had abandoned so he rested his hip in the windowsill and listened to their conversation. 'What did Cruz say? What will happen to Jo?' Eli asked.

"She was protecting her home and her family, there was documented evidence of him stalking her and our property, and documentation of his mistreatment of her. Between all of that, it was easy for Manuel to deem his death self defense, no contest. She wont even go to trial," Fletcher answered. Both of the younger men breathed a sigh of relief as the screams of an epic tantrum broke out downstairs. Fletch grinned lazily over at Spot, "Sounds like the Princess is displeased." Spot rolled his eyes, trying to block out Clarice's hollering. Between Eli being hurt and JoAnna being otherwise occupied, the little girl had gotten more disagreeable every day she was kept away from her two favorite people. Eli stroked JoAnna's hair, trying to sort something out in his head. Fletcher grabbed a piece of bread off the tray of food and threw it at him, laughing when it struck him right between the eyes. "You want some help with that? Or you wanna chew on your problems alone a little longer."

'I can pay for my own doctor bills,' he started, seemingly having a hard time keeping his hand off of Jo long enough to talk. Spot remembered feeling that way with Darcy, like she was the only thing keeping him from losing himself completely. 'But I won't be able to work, earn my keep. Jo said…doctor said…my arm…I should take the job at the school. I won't be a burden.'

Spot and Fletcher shared an amused look. "All those years you and Marta kept telling me how damn smart he is…but sometimes I just don't see it."

"He's stubborn as a damn mule it gets in the ways of his common sense sometimes," Spot agreed with a wry grin. "And he sees the good in everyone but himself. Always."

"I'd slap him if I thought his noodle could take it." Fletcher glared at him, but his glares were so unconvincing that they all ended up laughing instead. "This is your home. You're staying. That's final. Understood?" Eli nodded, not looking up.

"'Sides," Spot interjected since the mood had been considerably lightened, "if you go back to teaching, Fletch will have to deal with the damn bees by hisself."

Fletcher shuddered comically. "That's almost a reason to pay you to stay in and of itself!" He stretched his legs out in front of him and folded his arms behind his head. "That and the twenty dollars that Mason paid for all that honey y'all harvested. Not bad for your first harvest. He said to make sure you do up some with the comb in them next time. People love that."

Eli turned to Spot with a 'told you so' grin on his face. Spot threw his favorite lewd gesture back at his friend who snorted.

"All right, you bums," Darcy said from the doorway, bustling in with a tray full of basins and bandages, "unless you want in on this first torture session, you need to make yourselves scarce. Fletcher, could you take Jo to another bed please? We don't want the big ox squashing her when he tries to fight me and my antiseptic off."

'I'd never fight you,' he signed earnestly. 'I'd be too afraid. You're fucking scary when you're mad.'

"Flattery will get you nowhere, Trout Cooper," she retorted with a wink. She waved Fletcher forward but Trout whined in protest, sitting up a little straighter and wincing in pain. She softened. "It's gonna hurt, Sweets. You don't want to hurt her on accident. Please?"

She turned to Spot once Fletcher left the room with Jo cradled in his arms and pointed her finger right at his tipped up nose. "As for you, you get downstairs and deal with your daughter."

"Oh Jesus," he groaned, "what did she do now? She only my daughter when she acts too much like me."

"She locked Jesse and Will both in the pantry and demanded cookies as tolls to let them out and now she's trying to bully her way past Marta to get up here, screaming about some string that she has to give to her JoJo because her Eli needs it. I have no clue what that means, but she is madder than one of Eli's bees around Fletcher."

"Hey now!" Fletcher protested from the doorway. Only Spot seemed to notice the hesitant smile and flush that spread across Trout's face at the mention of the string.

Spot kissed Darcy's cheek and locked eyes with Trout. "I'm not sure which one of us needs the luck more. The bigger one is meaner, but the little one has no self control."

"Watch it!" Darcy snapped, grabbing Fletcher to stay and help her. "That little girl is 100% Conlon, the lack of self control came from somewhere."

'She has a point,' Eli agreed.

"Maybe so, but ain't no one ever gonna push my girl around. She'll soak anyone who tries." Everyone else in the room rolled their eyes, but he sauntered out, proud of the sassy, assertive girl he was raising. He was proud that his girl had people like Jo and Eli in her life too, to show her that being quieter and softer than him and Darcy wasn't a weakness. That sometimes being patient and weathering a storm was just as strong as fighting your way through the wind and the rain.


	24. Chapter 25

Eli heard Marta and Fletcher arguing the minute he came in the kitchen door for breakfast. They were so loud when they argued, between Marta's insults and Fletcher's long winded anecdotes, he was surprised that he didn't hear them from the bunk house. Darcy was waiting to check him over while doing her best to ignore them. This was their morning routine, he and Darcy, meeting at the door, her rolling his arm around and trying to get it to loosen up and then tying a sling around his neck for him and sending him on his way. His shoulder barely moved at all and the arm that it held could only rotate at the elbow. The doctor cut him out of the cast nearly a month ago, but Darcy, his self appointed head nurse and jailer, didn't let him out of bed for more than an hour of two at a time until just the previous week. She rolled her eyes at Marta and Fletcher while they went back and forth. They weren't angry, but Marta's responses were getting more and more snappy as Fletcher refused to see reason. Her hands were on her hips as she said, "Its a terrible idea. There is no softening her up to things right now, just tell her the truth, let her throw her little tantrum and hope she makes the right decision." They were talking about Jo, she was the only person on the ranch who was prone to temper tantrums besides Clarice, but Clarice was sitting at the table, happy as could be. Ever since Eli moved past the point where infection could take him, Jo had her good days where she was still the girl she once was, but she also had days where she looked like a ghost drifting around among them, hollow and empty. It was like worrying about him kept her from dealing with herself and once he was out of the woods, her emotions from Gordon's attack and death overwhelmed her, having grown stronger and more dangerous for having been left to ferment and stagnate.

Eli hissed as Darcy moved his arm more than it wanted to go and glared at her, but she glared right back, scolding him like a mother. He rolled his eyes at her. As much as they enjoyed each other's company before, the forced closeness let a friendship, a kinship with a life of its own grow between them. Eli didn't remember much about his sisters from his early days, but he imagined that what he felt for Darcy was similar to what he would have had with Lori and Marlene. She was bossy and overbearing and sarcastic and he teased her relentlessly and said mean things to her just to push her buttons. But she also helped him deal with JoAnna and her moods. She was always there to talk him back, explain what she saw that he couldn't.

Fletcher's responses to Marta's scathing insults was to kill her with good ol' cowboy charm. Brooklyn bite against easy, country persistence. "Nah, all bad news goes down better with a good story! Its like mixing whiskey and honey to calm a cough!" Fletcher insisted.

Darcy hopped down from her chair and shooed Eli over to sit down where Clarice was spreading jam on toast for herself and him.

'Where's Jojo?' Eli asked the little girl with his good hand. JoAnna had taken to making herself scarce unless specially requested to be present, but Clarice always seemed to know where she was hiding.

'Outside, looking for the snow.' She stood in her chair, a tea towel tied around her middle to cover her raspberry pink dress, and dug the knife into his slice of toast so he could fold the bread around the blade and pull it away, setting it on his plate before taking knife from her and cutting the crust off for her while she held her bread steady.

As she munched away with her stocking clad legs swinging he made sure no one was paying attention before he signed, 'Eat your toast, then I have to sneak past the mama bears. You get my coat and keep them busy so I can get out.' She nodded, the glint of adventure glowing in her light eyes and did as he asked. Spot's daughter was every bit as good as the man himself and snuck his coat to him like it was something she did every day. Neither Marta nor Darcy suspected a thing when Clarice went into the sitting room and started a fight with Jesse, swiping something out of his hands and pushing him over just to quickly let him push her over so she could sit on the floor, her big hair bow askew and her white blonde hair in her red face while she wailed incoherently and pointed at Jess. Darcy was none the wiser to his prison break and Spot would be proud of the performance Clarice was putting on. Poor, unsuspecting Jesse didn't know what happened, and Clarice was no snitch; she'd never tattle on her best pal.

He shivered against the cold air. A deep ache had settled in his shoulder the night before, letting him know the weather was coming, but so far, the sun was still out and they sky still blue. The wind though, was biting cold as it blew in from the mountains where the first signs of the storm that would hit later were just starting to build.

Fletch was standing next to JoAnna while she sat one a fence rail watching the bank of snow clouds form over the mountains. He leaned his elbows on the top rail, bent over at the waist and stared off with that half smile that his face naturally rested in while she glared, hard and cold at the horizon. The thick heavy mass was dark and rolling, pressed down low to the earth from above. It was October and the first snow was already overdue. Neither one spoke, they just stared at the cloud bank. JoAnna's grey wool coat puckered across the back from how stiff and rigid she held her posture, like an iron rod was stuck up her back. The skirt of her navy blue dress floated back through the fence rails and her long hair was down and tangled. Not ever itching to be the one to break a silence, Eli hung back and waited to see what they would do.

"Pretty, ain't it, Puss?" Fletch finally said, breaking the tense silence.

She turned to him, one dark eyebrow raised. "Puss?"

Eli's stomach clenched, knowing that this was the moment in question at breakfast. Fletcher nodded, never taking his eyes off the oncoming storm. "You ever have a cat?" She shook her head. "We had a mouser here when I was a kid, we just called her Puss. Strange little thing. My mama said she was a bit touched in the head. She never caught a single mouse, but none of us had the heart to get rid of her. Puss seemed to think it was her job to sit in people's laps and purr while they petted her and then bite their hands while she was still mid purr." She stared at him, her eyes narrowed. Eli rubbed his face in disbelief and counted down in his head as Jo's face got white and pinched with anger. Three...two...one...CRACK!!! Fletcher rubbed at the red handprint on his face. "What was that for? I loved that cat!"

"You came out here just to tell me I remind you of a cat? A cat you described as 'touched in the head' and you expect me to take that as a compliment?" Her voice was low and rough. She wasn't sleeping right, lying awake at night torturing herself with all of the things she'd done wrong. "Go away, Fletcher. I'm not in a very friendly mood right now."

The cowboy slumped against the rail again and dipped his head low, "See, thats the problem, Puss. I've been putting this off talking to you for near a week, waiting for the right time and the right mood, but the less you sleep, the more I worry about you. You ain't making things easy on anyone, least of all yourself."

"Kick me out then. Send me on my way," she gritted. Eli's chest got tight as he realized what she was doing, and more horrifying, where he had seen it before.

"No one is turning you out, Jo." He stared at her, trying to convey how serious he was to her, but she just scowled and he sighed again. "When I was in town a few days ago, a man came up to me and asked about your land and your house. He said he heard through the grapevine that it was vacant and wondered about renting the house and a few acres of land from you."

Her posture slumped from the rigid way she'd taken to holding herself. "It's not my property. It was Gordon's. I told you that I don't want to do anything with it. Just let the cows graze on the land and let the house rot. I won't take any of his money, its dirty."

"Legally, it's your land, Jo. He said he has a wife and two children all bunked together in one rented room right now while they try to find a place. He wants to build on the house a bit and farm the land. You could put away the money so that you can buy your own place someday...you and Eli." She wilted further, like the sadness inside of her was compressing her spine into a curve. Her fingers curled tightly around the fence rail, splinters digging into her nail beds, but she didn't seem to notice at all. He frowned, but chose not to argue with her. "What do you think about renting the house, let some good come from the bad? Flowers and vegetables all grow better with manure in their beds, JoAnna." He waited, watching her carefully for any sign of a reaction, but she didn't give one. He seemed to feel Eli watching him and turned around, staring at his younger friend before giving a half-hearted shrug. He tried, he gave her a chance to pull herself out and do the right thing, but she wouldn't take it.

"When do they move in?" she asked, knowing him and what he wasn't saying.

He stood up and dusted off his sleeves. "Tomorrow morning. Give it a chance, Jo. Let them grow their roses out of the pile of shit Gordon left for you." She didn't answer, just dug her fingers into her hair that she barely bothered to brush anymore, let alone put up as her scalp burned and tingled. She was so angry and didn't know how to let it out.

She gripped the once shiny, deep mahogany mass of hair, winding it around her fingers and tugging. "I know you're trying to help," she bit out gruffly, but her rough edges quickly dissolved until she was near tears. She was trying to be so strong, trying not to be the girl who sobbed at everything, but the truth was that her determination to be stoic and adult about all of this was eating her alive. "Find another way to fix me; this is too much." Her voice choked and broke off.

"It's done, Puss, and I'm sorry it's hurting you. You don't have to live there, you never have to go over there, but we can't just let it fall in when someone needs a home. If you want to talk about it some more, I'll be in the barn, but they're coming tomorrow. I'm not turning a nice family out because you've got demons. We've all got our load to carry, our cross to bear, and this is part of yours." He offered her a hand down and a hopeful smile, but she jumped down on her own, her fists clenched, her eyebrows puckered and her face white with misguided rage she couldn't contain anymore.

"I don't want to talk about it unless you're going to tell them not to come!"

Fletch tucked his hands in his pockets. "I expected you to be better than this, JoAnna. I got more work to do before this storm hits." He turned and walked towards Eli, clapping him on his good shoulder. "Don't let her off on her own; I'll cover for you with Darcy."

Fletcher sauntered away to the barn, but Eli hung back still, watching, letting her make her next move. Her body flew over the fence in a single, graceful vault and she took off, but her reached out and caught her, pulling her into his body. She was so focused on what she was compelled to do and where she needed to go that she never even saw him there. "Stop," he whispered right next to her ear. For a moment, she did, she curled into him and he felt her muscles relax for just a second and he held her tight, hoping he could keep her there, but she pushed away.

"Go back inside!" she squealed, pleading desperately, pushing him off of her and trying to walk north, towards her old home.

"JoAnna!"

"Stay here, damn it! Leave me be, Eli! Don't look at me! Just leave me alone!" She thrashed and flailed, fighting him, fighting herself, fighting her ghosts and demons and anyone else who got in her way.

He reached out and wrapped his hand around her upper arm, firmly enough to hold her in place, but gently so as not to hurt her. "If y-y-you're going over there, I'm going with you." She glared and glowered, angry and trying not to let the tears break free. "If you're b-b-burning the house down, I'm llllighting it with you. You're st-st-stuck with mmmme." He pulled her back in and her hand reflexively tucked into his, pushing in between the buttons of his coat, seeking his skin out. The discomfort and anger and fear and sadness all bristled off of her like steel wool over her skin, like static charges in the air before a storm. "I'm nnnot leaving you al-alone."

She leaned back and sniffled, asking a hundred and one questions with her eyes before settling on one to ask aloud. "Why do you still believe that I can be anything but the mess I keep showing you that I am?"

"I knnnnnnow you," he answered and kissed the top of her head. Wrapping his arm behind her shoulders and walking by her side the two miles to Gordon's little one room house. She shivered in his arms staring at it, and he felt her tense and shake trying to hold in her sobs. "Llllllllet it go, JoAnna," he murmured, and that was all it took for her to drop in the cold, dry prairie scrub and sob


	25. Chapter 26

They were right back where they started: she had a home and money she didn't want and he had nothing but good friends and an arm in a sling. He watched her for a bit, wallowing in a bit of despair himself, and rubbing his neck raw with his hand while she sobbed so hard that it sounded like her insides were going to spill out onto the dry desolate grass. Then he realized it. Somehow, they were right back where they started, but this time there would be no one pulling them to stay with their own kind. They were their own kind. They made it through the wilderness and back to each other, now they just had to get out of the way and let things happen. It brought a tentative smile to his face as he gingerly sunk down next to her on the cold ground and pulled her into his side. Her fists clutched as his coat as if he might slip away if she didn't hold him down. His fingers slipped into her hair, raking against her scalp and beginning the task of picking out the mass of tangles while she cried and clung to him. She cried until her voice was hoarse and scratchy, until her eyes were almost too swollen to keep open, and then she sat quietly staring at the tiny cabin. Her breath was so soft and she moved so little that he was continually checking to see if she had fallen asleep, but she just stared ahead.

As suddenly as she calmed, her body went rigid again. Every muscle in her tensed and again it felt like static charge was pouring off of her, making the very air around them tingle. She stared at the house, scrambling up from the ground and in the door with such force that it hit the inside wall. Wincing at the sound of every enameled tin dish in her kitchen hitting the floor, he stood up and slowly approached the door. She threw every broom, bucket, basket, skillet, while he watched, oddly at peace with her fury. She wasn't throwing anything at him, and it left no doubt about how she felt about Gordon and her life within those walls. Her hand wrapped around a tin of long matches from a shelf above the black cast iron stove and brandished it like a weapon at him, like she had the rasp . A shudder went through him at that thought. "Jo.." he said, his voice low and calm.

"No!" she shrieked. "No, don't you 'Jo' me!" She jabbed the can of matches in his direction, her eyes narrowing in a way that made his guts shrivel inside of him. He was there; he was the only one there and he was going to be punished for it.

"I-I-I d-d-d-d-didn't mmmmmmm..." He closed his eyes against her glare, against the shame he felt at being so easily distracted at something that came so easily to everyone else.

"Stop!" she shouted. "Stop stuttering! Just talk to me, just use your signs! Why are you so hung up on talking? We had something special back when you didn't talk! We had our own secret world. Why would you want to get rid of that? Why would you want to be like everyone else?" He stepped in, every muscle that he could tense, tensing. This was what he felt earlier, the familiarity. She was hurting and had no other way to deal with it than to lash out and hurt whoever was in front of her. He wasn't sure whether he wanted to roll his eyes or punch her more. If there was one thing she should know, it was not to put him down for talking, but as mad as he was at her, he managed to rein himself in and closed the door behind him. "Everyone else just sees some stupid little girl, an easy target. Someone to be tortured and shit on! I don't know what you want from me like this!" He ignored her demand and unbuttoned his coat, letting it fall down his good arm and hung it on a hook on the wall, staring at the hardware a little longer than he needed to. He wouldn't give in to her, he knew it was the only way out. She bristled, kicking dishes and and mugs aside, sending them skipping across the packed dirt floor. "Why did you change? What we had was perfect!"

"We w-w-were p-p-p-perfect," he agreed, leaning his back against the door, staying as far from her as he could. "But, it was the wr-wrong time. Too ssssssoon. We had to get here. Nnnnow."

"Now everything is terrible!" she wailed, moving so violently that the matches shook in their tin. She never moved to take one out of the box, she just held them as if they were the key to her salvation. "Everything is wrong now! I'm a murderer...twice a murderer! And this house..." she trailed off and looked around in contempt. "I hate this goddamned house and everything in it!" He barely had time to move when she let loose the tin at him. "And you're here, in my nightmare, stuttering along and making it all worse! Why are you here?" The tin hit the floor, spilling the matchsticks all around their feet. With a sigh, he pulled the sling up and over his head and tested his arm as best he could. He needed both hands. "What are you doing? Darcy is going to have a fit..."

'You want me signing, fine. Maybe you'll actually listen if I talk like this instead of screaming at me.' She threw her body down into one of the kitchen chairs and stared at him, her brown eyes wide. He didn't want this. He wasn't sure she was ready, but she wasn't leaving him a lot of options. 'But so we're clear, this doesn't feel special and private anymore. It feels like a trap. This is my language,' his eyes blazed as he thumped his chest, 'MINE, and you're using it to keep me, like dog! Like Spot used to with my notepad and not letting me sign, trying to control how I feel and who I can talk to, how I do it and everything else you could possibly sink a claw into and control. Because you have no control over your life, so you decide to take over mine!' Her eyes glowed like hot coals, but he couldn't protect her anymore. She'd gone too far, been allowed too many liberties and was drowning under the weight of it all. She needed to know what she was doing to him and be warned of the direction she was headed. 'You don't get to tell me how I feel or how I talk. And even though you're trying, I'm still here, putting up with you while you act like the center of the Universe.' The anger fell from her face, but he couldn't stop. 'I'm not going anywhere, JoAnna! Just like I promised. When are you going to let go of what is in the past, the things you can't change and actually try to let me in?'

For a long while the only sound in the little house was their breathing and the wind. He kept his back to her and she didn't move from her seat at the table. Emotion was taking over. 'I have nothing to give you but my heart and you make it feel so worthless. I'm not that boy anymore, who runs from everything, even though you make me want to run away from you and never look back sometimes. I'm not afraid of schools anymore, I'm a teacher. I was so good at it, Jo, and it made me happy, but not as happy as being with you. You have been too wrapped up in yourself to ask about me. Just. Like. Spot.' A tear wormed it's way out of his eye and started crawling, traitorously down his cheek, but he wiped it away angrily before dropping to pick up the scattered matchsticks. She didn't move, she didn't make a noise, she just watched him pick up matches and swipe away a few more traitors. When he stood up again, he had himself mostly pulled back together with the matches in hand. "What d-do you wwwwant want to do with these?"

She looked up at him and he could see everything swirling around in her head. She needed to just sit with that and learn to be ok with it. Her mouth moved, but all that came out was a rasping stammer. After clearing her throat she looked around the room. If her eyes got any bigger they would fall right out of her head. She stood up and unbuttoned her own coat, passing him, but being careful not to even brush him with her shoulder to hang it over his on the hook. "Spot would burn the place down," she murmured, still not meeting his gaze.

"An-and take a p-p-piss on the ashes," Eli added with a sad smile.

"He wouldn't do that now." She finally looked at him, her lip trembling and he nodded. She clenched her hands together trying to contain the tremor that was running through her body. "Can...can you make a fire...in the stove please? My hands..." She held them out, and he watched them shake. He nodded and did as she asked while she crossed her arms on the table top and rested her head, hiding her face in the void between her elbows. Once a fire was crackling in the firebox, he picked up a bucket and went out to the pump. The clouds had reached them at some point since they went inside, the winds no longer howled, instead, the storm had pulled it's thick blanket over the world, quieting everything. The sky was low and thick and grey, dropping large flakes like goose down that stuck to his hair and his eyelashes. He stood there, feeling at peace for once. Something shifted. He made her see something that she couldn't or wouldn't look at before, and it was going to change things for the better. The door clicked closed behind him and she gasped. She didn't try to touch him, and he was grateful for it. He was ready to forgive her, but if she was just going to turn on him again, he had to keep her at a distance. He couldn't take another round of Russian Roulette with her. She let out a breath slowly, tipping her head back and letting the huge flakes fall on her closed eyes and her perfect lips. Her hair was frosted with them, she looked like a creature from a fairy tale. "It wasn't always so bad here," she whispered. "When we first got here, I had my dreams to keep me company. Someone else deserves to try to make those dreams real here." He watched her carefully through snow crusted eyelashes as she opened her eyes and tilted her head back to normal. "And they shouldn't come home to their dream being trashed." She took the bucket from his hand and filled it at the pump. "There are makings for whitewash in the lean-to out the back door. Could you get them?" They cleaned the tiny house from top to bottom, leaving a clean slate for the new family to paint their own dreams in.

They walked back to the ranch in silence, each mulling over the day in their heads, and neither wanting to disturb the soft silence of the falling snow, but the silence didn't end when they got to the house. She stood on her toes and softly kissed his cheek before disappearing up the stairs where he heard the water running through the hot water heater Fletcher had installed in the washroom.

Eli sat down at the table, his hand cushioning his forehead from the hard tabletop. The day, the work, the emotional distress was taking it's toll on him. He was exhausted and wanted nothing more than to go to bed, but he was too tired to move himself. He wished he'd moved himself when Darcy stomped into the kitchen.

She glared at him through her green eyes, so soft in color, so hot in temper. "I hope you got out of that what you hoped for," she gritted through her teeth. "Honestly, using a child to help you sneak out."

"D-darce...don't," he sighed, not lifting his head.

"Are you trying to injure this arm permanently?" she snapped. "Where's your sling?" He didn't answer and she stamped her foot. "That's it, up with you. Get out of that shirt and let me look at you."

"No."

"Take your shirt off and let me see what you've done to yourself," she ordered. He stood and painstakingly crossed his arms over his chest, towering over her. He just wanted to be left in peace, he'd been yelled at enough for one day. Unfortunately for him, Darcy didn't care how much bigger he was than her. "There ain't nothing under that shirt that I ain't seen before, Eli Cooper," Darcy snapped, pushing him back. "Don't think I didn't see you out there!" JoAnna peeked around the kitchen doorframe as Eli grumpily glared at Darcy.

"Jealous?" he teased, trying to change the subject, but again, Darcy's four foot eleven inch outsides didn't dwarf her seven foot tall personality. He let out an exasperated huff. "I'm ffffine," he growled at her, his left hand signing the words as his fatigue threatened to take away his control over his mouth. He flicked his eyes back over to the door where Jo stood. Her hair was wet and hanging down her back. She caught him looking and ducked away.

Darcy reached up and slapped the back of his head. "Do you think I'm stupid? You are not fine. You over did it today and now you're trying to pretend it doesn't hurt! Now, are you taking that shirt off so I can fix you up? Or am I cutting it off of you?" She raised one of her eyebrows at the same time as she raised a long pair of sewing sheers, opening and closing the blades a few times for effect. He growled again, but stood up to untuck his blue shirt and drop his black suspenders to his sides. She tried to help him with the buttons, but he gently brushed her hand away, opening them easily with his left hand, his fingers remembering what to do. He did let her draw the fabric down his arms, too tense to shrug deeply enough to get it off.

Darcy paused her swift movement, staring towards the door with a soft smirk on her face as she moved a chair behind him and gently pushed him down by his other shoulder, but said nothing. She poked and kneaded at his muscles and down his upper arm, cursing and grunting under her breath as her tiny fingers were met with resistance. "You're going to break my fingers with these knots," she grunted, digging her knuckles in. He groaned and tried to pull away, but she held him still. "I know it hurts; relax and let me help." He flinched as her knuckles dug in again, but nodded in submission.

Darcy pushed his head down to rest on the table, cushioned by his other arm. Once she was convinced that he would keep his head down and his eyes closed, the blonde bulldog went to the pantry and gathered a basin and a myriad of jars and paper wrapped parcels of herbs and dried flowers along with a stack of dish towels. She poured hot water into the basin and put a few towels in to soak and wrung one out, placing it over his shoulder. He hissed at the sting on his skin, but then settled in as the heavy heat started doing it's job nearly immediately.

The smell as the the hot water hit the mixture of herbs, forming a thick, unctuous paste that she slathered over the top of the towel thrown over him made his nose itch and his upper lip curl. "Witch," he mumbled. "P-p-probably turning me into a t-t-toad."

She pinched his cheek with her paste covered hand and crooned, "Such sweet things you say to me. Lucky thing I'm a married gal, or you could just charm the drawers right off of me with lines like that." He chuckled as Jo choked on her own spit in shock behind him. Darcy covered her poultice with a few more hot towels before throwing a wool blanket over all of it to keep the heat in. "You rest now," Darcy murmured in his ear. It was so blisteringly hot that if she hadn't done it a number of times since his cast came off, he would be sure that his skin would be scalded when he came out. She chuckled and ruffled his hair in a loving way. He was glad to have a sister who would look out for him like Darcy would. She'd be firm enough to make Jo listen, but kind enough not to hurt her on purpose.

She was an expert after all. She was the woman who loved Spot.


	26. Chapter 27

Darcy yanked Jo behind the barn, well away from the house while Eli slept. She stopped and glared at Jo until the taller girl felt two feet tall. She didn't know what she was in trouble for, but it was obvious that Darcy was not happy with her. "Let him sit for an hour or so and then see if you can't kneed the knots out. The heat and the herbs should do most of the work for you." Her words were clipped and business-like, not friendly and teasing or soft and warm like she was used to hearing from her friend. In the six months she'd known Darcy, she'd come to think of her as the best girlfriend she'd ever had. She didn't have much basis for comparison, but she still wasn't used to Darcy being short with her.

"Where are you going?" Jo whined. She sounded weak and needy and she hated it.

"I'm going to deal with my own husband, my own house and my own messes. I didn't make that mess, so I ain't going to be the one to clean it up." Flabbergasted, Jo stood there staring blankly and Darcy rolled her eyes, "You can't be taken care of forever JoAnna! It's time to give a little back. He was only up and outside by my good graces. He is not supposed to be taking two mile walks or painting walls because you gave yourself the vapors over a damn house. You might have injured him permanently by letting him baby you and carry you along. It's time to grow up, Buttercup. Give him an hour, clean up the kitchen, put supper on and for god's sake, don't let him carry anything for you! You aren't a princess anymore!" The blonde smirked appreciatively and seductively. "In my experience, its very few and far between when what is under a man's shirt is as nice looking as what you're turning down right now." She took a deep breath and shoved back the silky flyaway hairs from her face. Her green eyes glared at Jo. "Throw the man a bone for god's sake! Either love him, make the leap of faith and trust him or set the guy free. What you're doing to him is wrong. So very wrong." Her breath drew in, sharp and ragged at the thought of him loving someone else and a smile crept across Darcy's face. "That's what I thought. One hour. Figure yourself out, JoAnna." She stalked away to her own little house, leaving Jo to stew in her own juices in the yard. She was terrified to go back in that kitchen, but knew she had to. What was worse was that Darcy knew she would do what she was told. The blonde was counting on it. For a few minutes, Jo stomped around, huffing and puffing at the nerve of her friend, telling her she had to give more to Eli when she wasn't ready. Who was that little hussy to give her orders? But her anger was short lived, she didn't have much fire left after the morning's drama. She was tired, too tired to fight. With a heavy heart and a conflicted mind, she went back to the house and tiptoed around Eli while she did what Darcy asked.

By the time the hour was up, the kitchen was spotless, supper was on the stove, Eli was fully asleep, snoring softly with his head on the table and Jo was seriously considering a shot of whiskey to try to make her heartbeat slow down. She had worked herself up into a lather taking Darcy's advice to figure herself out and it felt like hummingbird wings were banging against her ribs. She scrubbed and chopped and all the while searched her own mind for what was making her so reluctant to get past chaste kisses and hand holding with the man that she loved more than herself.

That was one problem, she DID love him more than herself and so his love felt misplaced. She spent so long convinced that she didn't deserve real love that it was hard to accept it when it was staring her in the face. The other truth she came to was that the next step, the next few steps if she was completely honest, that relationships took scared her to her core. The way she experienced physical intimacy and marriage were not treasured memories, but painful nightmares. She was terrified that her understanding was the truth, that once she gave herself to him, it would mean giving herself over to the pain that Gordon showed her in their bed. Somewhere inside her, she knew that couldn't be true, but it was easier to push him away when Eli got too close than it was to risk really and truly losing the image of him, his gentle touch and soft, sweet words, to the harshness of what she knew as reality. But Darcy was right. She had to trust him. He trusted her with the control of their love, and she'd been selfish with it, lording it over him like a tyrant. Like her mother had done with her power all her young life. That biting truth was all it took to propel her across the kitchen to where he sat sleeping.

Her hands trembled as she lowered the woolen blanket and laid the damp, green tinged towels in the empty basin. His skin was so hot to touch that she feared she would have blisters from squeezing and rolling the dense bundles of muscle in her hands. As the tension released, he let out quiet grunts and moans. What once felt like thick rope became pliable under her gentle touch, and the heat that was radiating out of him was now trapped in her gut. Anytime she had touched a man in any way other than an embrace before this, it was by force, but he sat, placid and submissive under her hands, not demanding anything from her, and that ignited a fire in her belly. Her arms trembled in exhaustion and her hands ached, but she didn't want to stop touching him, afraid that the moment she pulled away her brain would start to whisper the lies about him again. JoAnna's eyes opened wide as he stretched and writhed, releasing the last traces of tension in the muscles that rippled beneath the smooth, pale skin of his back. The track that the hook took up his shoulder blade was still red and puffy, but it was the only mar on the perfect expanse of skin. Her mouth watered at the sight of him. He leaned back in the chair, the crown of his head grazing her stomach as his hand snaked up over his shoulder and patted hers as she gently continued to massage and touch. "Thank you, JoAnna" he murmured sleepily.

"Did you know it was me this whole time?"

He nodded, a slow smile spreading across his face. His big hand wrapped around hers, covering it completely, and pulled it around to press a chaste kiss to her palm. "Her hhhhands are tiny. I know your hands." Looking at that big hand wrapped around hers, hearing that he knew her touch by heart broke down the last wall. She traced the outline of the deep purple scar on his back and he shrank away from her. "D-d-don't," he hissed.

"Does it hurt?" she asked.

"No," he answered quietly as he stood and turned to face her, his hair falling over his forehead that was furrowed from brow to hairline. His eyes wouldn't meet hers, and the amount of pain in them sent a pang to her heart. "But you can't t-touch me like that, I c-c-c-can't..." He shook his head and tightly closed his eyes as tears filled hers and blurred her vision. He couldn't bear for her to show him anymore affection just to be brushed off again.

She rushed the step forward and pressed her face into his skin, wrapping her arms around his back and digging her fingers in. "I'm so sorry. I was so scared. I'm so scared now. I knew it was hurting you, but I couldn't stop. I couldn't see clearly. I don't think and I'm so selfish..."

He pulled her face up with a gentle finger under her chin. "Tell mmmme what you w-w-w-want." He didn't care about what had passed between them whether in the past 6 hours or the past seven years. He only cared about what she wanted going forward.

She finally had an answer for him, but time for words had passed. She took his hand and kissed each fingertip, planted one in his palm, at his wrist and on up. She listened as his breath grew shallow and his heartbeat quickened under her ear. When she reached the crook of his elbow she took the hand she had just finished lavishing affection on and placed it on her chest, just like she had in the attic of St Xavier's so long ago. He swallowed, staring at the contents of his hand and then back up into her deep, brown eyes, searching her face but she just smiled. "I trust you, Eli, and I'm not that little girl anymore. I know what I'm asking for. You would never hurt me. Never." His eyes darted around in a panic of confused feelings, lust and caution, love and fear. He sucked the inside of his bottom lip in between his teeth and worried at it adorably. "I can't promise not to hurt you, my head is still...lost sometimes. But I can promise to trust you. I've always loved you, so that feels too easy. Trust is hard. I promise to always trust you, even if I need to be reminded."

He looked down at her, his eyes darkening to a point where they were almost teal. She held her breath, afraid she might fall in to those deep blue depths. His hand raised and gently ran down the side of her face, down her neck, over her collarbone, coming back to rest right where she placed it moments before. He ducked his head so that his mouth was right next to her ear, gently caressing it with his breath as he said, "Mmmmore kit...kit-ses. I wwwwant mmmmmore." A delightful shiver ran down her spine and her skin was covered in goosebumps under her dress. He didn't have to promise her anything. He'd kept every promise he'd made to her. It was her hang ups holding them back.

Her head pressed in closer to his and a fluttering sigh exited her body as he drew her earlobe into his mouth. "More everything," she agreed and reluctantly pulled away to take his hand, pulling him towards the stairs and up to her room. He paused for a moment, looking at all of the other doors in the upstairs hallway, but she smiled. "They're all outside, supper's taken care of. No one will miss us."


	27. Chapter 28

He was everything she needed him to be. He was slow, sometimes torturously slow, affectionate, attentive, everything he was outside of bedroom and she felt silly for ever having doubted him, for letting her brain tell her those lies and for believing those angry, cursed voices instead of the real, live person standing in front of her. She didn't think there was an inch of her he didn't give attention to, didn't plant a kiss or caress on and once he had thoroughly convinced her of his love, his intention, he let her take over again. He let her return the favor, received her affection, her apologies and her appreciation just as eagerly but submissively as he'd done earlier. He never pushed her, never held her down even for a moment, even when he was obviously not in control of his own body. He showed her how good that mouth of his was at so many other things even if it struggled so much with speaking. Even his stutters went to good use in their private heaven. They lost themselves, lost all track of time, all sense of separation, all knowledge that anyone else in the world even existed and just worshipped one another, so happy to finally be as close as humanly possible, coexisting in the same space.

She woke before him, warm, comforted and utterly trapped by the weight of his shoulder over hers, his arm thrown across her middle, his thick leg tangled with hers under the quilt. He slept on his stomach and his lips were still pink and swollen from all of the attention they received. She smiled contentedly with her own ravaged mouth and pushed the dark curls off of his face tenderly, letting them wrap around her fingers like even they didn't want to let her go. Gentle light pushed through the curtains and she reached over to the nightstand for her watch, gasping when she realized it was very early morning, not dusk like she thought. They spent the whole night together, wrapped up and consumed in one another. Her cheeks flushed just thinking about it as she turned as much as she could to press her lips to the warm skin of his shoulder. He hummed in pure contentment in his sleep and she smiled closing her eyes as she shifted herself out from under him just a bit so she could continue to kiss up his neck and along his jaw until he opened one brilliant eye and grinned sheepishly, like a naughty little boy. She returned the grin and leaned in further. "Can I keep you?" she asked in his ear.

He nodded and rolled away, pushing himself up to sit against the headboard before pulling her back on top of him. His hands dragged slowly up from the backs of her knees, dangerously close to an area already aching for his touch before gently pulling her legs apart to straddle his hips. He appraised her with his eyes for a moment, raking down her body appreciatively, his hand following the same path and then back up. When their eyes met again he swirled his index finger in the air, 'Always.' She sighed and leaned down to kiss him hungrily.

"Finally," she breathed, closing her eyes and tipping her head back as his kisses left her mouth and began to travel downwards. The rest of the house was waking up and moving by then, but neither Jo nor Eli heard the dishes clanging or the shouts at the boys to get up for school. The only thing they were aware of were the noises that came from Jo when Eli's talented mouth connected with her flesh. The way his tongue flicked at just the right places.

So wrapped up in each other, they didn't hear the panicked footsteps on the stairs, or the single soft knock at the door before it flew open. "Jo, Trout's gone. Jim said he never..." a shocked squawk from Jo as she reflexively collapsed on Eli's face in an attempt to cover herself stopped Marta mid sentence and she just stared at the two of them, her hazel eyes wide. No one moved, no one spoke. Jo buried her face in Eli's neck and groaned in embarrassment while her face burned so hot that his skin felt cold to the touch.

He kissed her shoulder and chuckled into her hair while she hid. "Marta," he said, raising his head and resting his chin on Jo's shoulder, "d-d-d-don't you knnnnnncok? Go 'way. B-b-be down lllllater."

Jo lifted her head and stared at Eli, who was ginning like a cocky teenager while Marta stammered and went red in the face, her freckles disappearing in the flush of blood. It took her awhile to gather her wits enough to speak. "Y-y-yes...I...just...play nice," she sputtered before turning in a hurry and closing the door behind her. Both of them broke into peals of hysterical laughter at her exit, Jo didn't think she'd ever laughed so hard, not even when Race kissed Spot, or when they'd danced the grizzly bear.

"Did...did she just tell us to 'play nice?'" she stammered out between fits of wild giggles. He nodded, laughing so hard that his eyes squinted and it wasn't worth even bothering to try speaking. They were just calming down when the kitchen below them erupted with cheers and whooping. "Oh my god," she groaned, "they're cheering for us."

"C-c-cat's outta the b-b-bag," he agreed. When the family gathered downstairs started loudly singing "For They are Jolly Good Fellows," both of the timid lovers groaned. "Shit," Eli hissed under his breath. "We'll never hhhhear the end of it nnnow."

"We'll need our own place. No wonder Spot and Darcy live next door."

He laughed, "They'd d-do it on the k-k-kitchen table if Marta would let them. Sh-sh-shameless, those two." Then he paused and stared at her, "Our own p-p-place?"

She blushed and sat up, pulling the sheet up and around her chest. "What do you think?"

He grinned, and looked down, rubbing his hands up and down her thighs. "I d-d-dunno, you'd hhhhave to mmmmmake and honest man outta me."

She rolled her eyes and gently slapped his chest for teasing her, but she wasn't mad or even the slightest bit annoyed. She leaned forward and kissed him. She brushed his hair off his face again and he cupped her cheek in his big palm. "So how do we do this? Where I'm from its all about the fathers reaching an agreement. It's more of a business proposal than an act of love. Aren't you supposed to ask me something?"

He cocked and eyebrow smarmily and held his hand up in surrender. "You're in charge, r-r-r-remember? Th-th-this is your world, boss."

She tsked her tongue, "Cheater." His face got very serious as he rubbed up and down her arms and stared intently into her eyes. He started to speak but quickly got flustered, making her smile. "You know I hear you however you say it. Just tell me."

He sighed and nodded, reluctantly removing his hands from her skin to sign, 'I'd have married you the night of the town social if you would have let me. I'd marry you this very minute if I could, but I promised you choices. When you want to get married, you tell me and we'll do it.'

She sat back, staring at him. After everything she'd done, everything she'd put him through, there he was telling her that it didn't matter. "Today makes seven years since I left New York," she said absently. "You must have been so confused."

He nodded, "I th-thought you were k-k-kidnapped, or mmmmad because I said not to run away, but to wwwwait."

"But still you looked for me?"

He pulled her close again, as if he needed to feel her to convince himself that she was really there with him while he talked about when she left. "I wwwas affffffffraid for you."

She rested her head on his shoulder and they were silent for a while, mourning lost time. She thought about the day before, the night that just ended and about Darcy demanding that she figure herself out. What did she want? She wanted to feel safe and loved. She wanted reason to ignore those horrible thoughts that took over her head from time to time. She wanted the warmth of his skin on hers...what she wanted was pretty plain and simple when she stopped believing that Eli could ever be anything like Gordon. She just had to get out of her own way. She sat up abruptly. "Do you have a middle name?" He gave her a strange look before shrugging his shoulder. "You don't know?"

"Don't rrrrrrrremember," he answered simply before making the sign for 'Why?'

She grinned, her face flushing. "Because I think it's customary to use one's fullest name when you say: Eliot Cooper, will you marry me today?" Some garbled, random syllables fell from his mouth that he covered quickly, trying to stem the flow of nonsense and he stared at her wide eyed. His body was tensed, waiting to shove her off of him if she said she was joking. "Eli?" Her voice was tentative and shaking, "Is that a no?"

"N-n-not funny, Jo," he said quietly.

She pressed a hand on either side of his face, forcing him to look up at her. "The only person who has ever considered me funny is Racetrack, which should tell you something about how good I am at trying to be funny. I'm not joking. Will you marry me?"

He searched her face, seeing how serious she was. "T-t-today?"

She shrugged. "The day we were split up and they day we officially only belonged to one another having the same date, seems rather poetic to me."

He laughed, "S-s-s-sounds like one of your silly stories." He swallowed, "Y-y-you can't kick me out anymore..."

"Sure I can, Darcy does it all the time to Spot!" At his look of defeat she laughed, "I won't . No more running away, not for either of us." She ducked her head till her forehead was pressed against his and her lips were tiny fractions of an inch away from his, "I've waited to be JoAnna Cooper my whole life, Eli." His arms wrapped behind her and pulled her down flush on top of him. She sighed, resting her head on his heart, "You've brought me back to life."

He looked up at her, and she could see him rush through their lives both together and apart in his mind. His face shifted from emotion to emotion. As small smile twitched in the corner of his mouth, and he chuckled, his eyes twinkling up at her, "Who gets to t-tell Clarice that I'm t-t-taken?"

She laughed out loud. "Don't you worry about our Buttercup. She gave me our string back months ago. She knows you're all mine."

He looked at her deeply, seeming to try to stare into her very heart and soul with those eyes that were so blue they didn't seem possible before a wide smile broke out on his face that made her heart flutter in her chest. His real smile, his full smile, the one that he let out so rarely was so devastatingly beautiful that it always made her melt. "B-b-better get up if we...we're..." he paused and flushed, running a hand down her bare arm and then pinching his own, checking to make sure it was all real, "g-getting mmmmmarried."

She knew he was right, but she just needed a minute to sit with his acceptance of her. She wiggled, down, settling her body against his and tucking her head into the hollow of his throat where she had always felt like she fit so perfectly. He was hers and she was his. The nightmare was over. There would still be bad days, days that she would pack her bag, days when Darcy was the only thing keeping him from running because she was still so broken inside, but their days got better with time and patience. The important thing was that they were together again, right where they were supposed to be. Just a bird and a fish, building their nest right where they belonged, surrounded by the family that they chose and that chose them back.


	28. Epilogue

The train and her heart lurched simultaneously as they pulled into Grand Central. She was home, but she was a different JoAnna than she was when she left. That wide eyed, dreamy little girl was no more and the person she was now had never seen those streets before. A beautiful redhead smiled up at the train next to the dark haired man who could only be Racetrack. He'd grown a bit and his face had matured, but his terrible taste in waistcoats remained. The woman's smile was as dazzling as her shiny red hair and her green eyes that shone like jewels. The more JoAnna stared at her, the more she was sure she knew her and her jaw dropped when it came to her **.**

Eli was struggling to pull their cases down from the rack over their seats. His arm would never be the same as it was thanks to her late husband, but he made do. A nudge at her arm made her pull away from the glass, embarrassed at the face print she left from her gawking. He smirked at his wife knowingly and held out her old carpetbag to her. "Coming?" he asked with a raised eyebrow. It didn't matter that they'd been married nearly a year and that she saw his face every day, that face would always drive an unruly herd of butterflies through her stomach, especially when it was doing his talking for him.

"That's Clara Renwick," she answered, pointing at the woman outside the glass in awe.

"Uh-huh…" he answered curiously, cocking his head to the side at her strange behavior.

"Racetrack Higgins is marrying a Gramercy Park Renwick."

Eli kissed her and picked up both of their cases, one tucked under his arm and one in his left hand, before pulling her against him. She would never tell him, but she liked that his right arm was too weak, because that meant it was nearly always free to circle her waist and hold her close to him. "Nnnnnnot A Ren-Renwwwwwick," he answered in her ear and nodded out the window, "th-that one."

She tilted her head up and kissed under his jaw, "I was supposed to marry a Renwick, you know. My mother figured they would be the only family odd enough to put up with me. Clara was there, at the table when I told them all where they could stuff it. If I hadn't run, Racetrack Higgins might be my brother in law next week."

They looked at each other and laughed at that thought. Eli took her hand, "Rrrrrrrready now?" he asked. "T-too late to go hhhhhhhome." He led her down the aisle and out of the car to the platform. Her feet barely hit solid ground before Eli was tackled by a flash of black hair and loud waistcoat and landed with a oof on the floorboards. Clara stepped up next to JoAnna as the boys wrestled like children.

"Nice to see you again, JoAnna. I'm so glad you made it," Clara said quietly and grabbed Jo's hand. Even with only one fully working arm, Racetrack had no chance against Eli. They rolled around, garnering curious looks from passersby until Eli managed to get Race off of him and stand up, brushing the soot and dirt from his clothes, not a bruise or scratch on him.

Race grinned charmingly and Jo couldn't help but join him. "You disappear into thin air six years ago, lose me two separate bets to this beautiful ginger and show up out of the blue married to my best friend and I don't even get a proper hello?"

She laughed and wrapped him in her arms, "Well, you seemed a bit preoccupied mauling my husband. I thought I'd give you two your moment." They both glowered as the girls laughed at their expense.

Not long after, Eli and JoAnna were settled in their suite at the Benjamin Hotel. The heat and humidity outside were stifling. JoAnna came out of the washroom, stripped of her limp dress to find Eli looking out of a big picture window. He had his shirt off, letting the breeze through the open glass cool his skin. He made her skin tingle in a delicious way, just watching him. His right arm hung at his side, still weak and unable to move. The scar on his back faded to a faint pink, and it called to her, always the first thing she needed to kiss in moments like this. Her lips pressed against the shiny, wrinkled skin and he leaned back into her. Her fingers pressed into the skin at his navel, scratched by the small patch of hair there. Her other hand rested just below his breastbone and his covered it, rubbing back and forth. "You ok, Jo?" he asked, pulling her around and kissing the top of her head.

"Just nervous, I guess," She answered, closing her eyes and settling her body into the curve of his, the breeze coming in the open window cooling her skin. She rested her cheek against the small patch of pink, puckered skin just below his collar bone, the other side of the scar. He kissed her slowly and deeply, telling her without words that he would be by her side the whole time before leading her back to the bedroom to sleep for a bit.

She awoke to a note on his pillow telling her that Clara would meet her in the lobby at three. He had a favor to do for Cici. Jo twinged with jealousy at being abandoned in a city that seemed so foreign to her. She was rarely allowed to venture outside the high walls of her garden as a child, so she sat in the grand lobby and waited for her chaperone.

She was near tears with worry and loneliness when Clara blew in the door like a breath of fresh air. She hooked her arm through Jo's and started walking down the street. "I'm sorry if you were waiting. Eli sent a telegram asking me to swing by and take you around on my errands but I was already out when it came so they had to track me down. This wedding business has me going non stop. Is that how it was for your wedding?"

JoAnna smiled, thinking back on her whirlwind wedding day and grinned, "No. We got married the same day I asked him. I wore the only dress I had clean."

Clara looked utterly scandalized. She easily shook off her shock and smiled brilliantly. "Well, good, all the more reason to help me soak up the last bits of 'fun' getting ready for mine." With that, Clara dragged her into a dress shop. They sat on plush sofas, while shop girls served them finger sandwiches and tart lemonade with ice cubes floating in it

Clara went into a curtained off area to change into her wedding dress to have some last minute alterations made. That was when the dress caught Jo's attention. It was deep forest green silk with large deep pink roses embroidered on the loose, blousey bodice. A sash at the cinched waist and a ruffle of skirt at the bottom, peaking out from below the green were both a brown so deep that it seemed black until the light hit it when it glowed warmly with golden highlights. Champagne colored lace softened the plunge of the square neckline into a much more modest V shape and adorned the short sleeves. It really was breathtaking. She'd never cared much about what she wore, not that she was ever given much of a choice. The frothy, frilly light colored day dresses that girls of her status wore during the day made her feel like a walking meringue and she was forever in trouble for getting them dirty. This dress, this beautiful green silk dress made her heart flutter and her mind come alive. She could imagine things, beautiful things happening in this dress. Eli loved her in green and she loved roses. She could imagine the way his eyes would light up when she stepped out in it for the first time. She pulled the hanger down and held it up to her front, swaying back and forth in front of the full length mirror, smiling at the girl who looked back at her. She finally looked happy, not like she was trying to be happy, but like she just was.

The curtain opened and Clara stepped out looking like a vision. Her snow white dress made her beautiful auburn hair look even richer and her skin like cream. "JoAnna," she said, stepping away from the pedestal that the seamstress was trying to get her to step on and towards her friend, "if you don't say yes to me buying that dress then I will hold you down on my wedding day and shove you in it myself." She had her hands on her hips trying to look as imposing as she possibly could, and Jo gave in. She smiled again, squealing happily and finally stepped onto the pedestal. After that, it was on to a cake shop.

The bakery door opened, the delightful sugary smell of vanilla sponge cake and chantilly cream wafting out into their noses when Racetrack's voice carried up over the din of the city. "Clara!" He ran up, the air of mischief surrounding him just as thick as the smell of butter and sugar surrounding the bakery. He leaned his elbows on his knees to catch his breath, wiping his sweaty brow with his sleeve. "Your mother wants you home. There was a...uh...problem with topiaries in the garden."

Her skin blanched as her eyes widened. "What problem? What happened?"

He cleared his throat, trying his hardest to keep a straight face as he fiddled with an unlit cigar. "The uh...neighbor's dog got out and spooked the gardener...and he uh...decapitated one of the lions...".

JoAnna choked trying not to laugh while Clara's face contorted and turned white. "Anthony Higgins, if this is one of your pranks..."

"Cross my heart, Dollface, I ain't LION!"

Clara narrowed her eyes and seethed at him for making light of something that was disastrous to her mind. "You better watch yourself, Mr Higgins, or you'll find yourself quite alone at that alter on Saturday. Take care of her, check on the cake," she ordered and took off running.

"I don't know what she thinks running there is going to accomplish," Jo said, watching her disappear, "The lion lost his head, it's not like she can reattach it if she gets there in time, but I feel bad for that gardener."

He laughed loudly. "Heads are gonna roll...besides the bush's...you don't mess with a pissed off redhead."

"In my experience, the tinier the girl, the more scary they are when they're mad."

He smiled, "Add wedding stress in on top of an already fiery personality...and watch out!"

"Especially when beheaded shrubbery is involved." They shared a short look before both of them cracked up. He laughed even more when she couldn't stop the little snorts that always accompanied her belly laughs. They began wandering back in the general direction of the hotel.

"If you woulda told me seven years ago that the girl who I took on her first walk over the Brooklyn Bridge would be walking on my arm the week before I married a different Gramercy Park Gibson girl, pretty sure I woulda checked you into the loony bin myself." She laughed thinking back on that day, walking across the bridge with Race. He stopped and gave her a thorough once over. "But it wouldn't have surprised you, not even then after knowing him two days that you'd be married to Trout."

"I'd have been surprised," She argued, but grinned and felt her cheeks heat up, "surprised but delighted and deliriously happy."

They moseyed along and she breathed in New York, telling Race about the space of time between her disappearance and showing up in Colorado as the Fletcher's next door neighbor. He'd gotten Eli's version in letters, but Nosey Nancy that he was, he enjoyed hearing her side. "Race," She asked suddenly, cutting him off mid-sentence, "do you feel grown up yet?"

"Who me? Nevah." She chuckled, completely convinced that was true. "'Specially not when you call me Race. Its almost believable when I'm Tony, but Race...Race will always be a newsboy running these streets. Tony...he might grow up. It's possible."

"Possible," She said wickedly, and looked at him out of the corner of her eye, "but not likely." He chuckled. "I think I'll always be looking for a more grown up grown up in whatever room I'm in, but I don't need a babysitter Race. You should go back to Clara's house, protect that poor gardener. I'll head to St Xavier's." He blanched and his jovial smirk dropped. "Eli said he was helping Cici..."

"He...he his, but they ain't at the school. He wanted you to have something else to do. They's at The Foundling. " Her heart sank.

"Go home, Race," she whispered. "Go take care of the headless lion."

He shook his head and hailed a carriage. "He's gonna kill me either way, might as well make sure you get there safe and sound before I die. Just try to lie to him and tell him you threatened me, beat the secret out of me."

A grin lightened the load on her heart, "Deal."

The Foundling was a fixture of New York life on Lexington, a hospital for women in trouble and home for the babies if the mothers couldn't care for them. Jo didn't belong in a place like this. These women had a problem she couldn't fathom, children they couldn't keep, while she struggled with the opposite.

After a few questions at the front door, she was directed to a high floor in the Children's Home and found Cici standing in a dim hallway, staring through a glass sidelight into a classroom. At the sound of shoes clicking on the wooden floorboards, the now middle aged woman turned and stared at her niece like she was seeing a ghost.

A huge grin spread across her face. Her jaw was still strong and her hair was still piled regally on her head, always reminding Jo of Alice Roosevelt. "Oh, my girl!" she breathed, throwing her arms wide. Jo flew into her welcoming embrace and was soon crying harder than she had in ages, since just after Gordon's death. Cici's arms held her so tightly, with such relief to finally see with her own eyes that Jo really was alive and safe.

The door opened, and she was handed off into a different set of arms, his arms. He held her silently until she had no more tears to cry and handed her a hanky with his eyes full of regret. He wanted to protect her from this place. 'She's like me,' he signed. 'I knew coming here would upset you, but I had to help.'

She wiped her eyes and peaked around his shoulder into the classroom where a little girl, just about Clarice's age on the floor with a slate in her lap. Her chocolate brown hair fell down to the bottoms of her shoulder blades in dark tangles and her black stockings had holes in them at the knees. The little girl's lovely deep green eyes stared back curiously. A navy blue bow had somehow been attached to the mass of tangles around her her round, lush baby cheeks. Those green eyes, not the same bright, sparkling emerald as Clara's, but more earthy and warm, like apothecary glass, gleamed back, large and mistrusting. She scowled at them for interrupting her play. Jo smiled at her, and her little brow furrowed, the frown on her perfect little strawberry of a mouth relaxing. That sweet child needed him. "Go back to her," she whispered, kissing the corner of his mouth.

'Come with me,' he answered, taking his wife's hand in his. She shook her head and pushed him back.

She wasn't ready to go in that room yet. "Go on." He closed the door behind him and she watched through the glass as he folded his huge frame to sit on the floor beside her. She looked up at him and then back to the window, shifting to sit closer to him and pointed at her slate.

"Her mother understood her," Cici said, putting her hands on Jo's shoulders. "She was allowed to talk as she pleased and her mother translated for her, but now that her mother has passed she expects everyone to do the same. She's too young to understand that we can't. This is the third orphanage she's been at in as many months because she gets so violent when she's punished for not speaking correctly, and speech training was a disaster. Her mother must have told her that she's perfect just the way she is..."

"As she should have," she snapped without thinking. Mothers and motherhood were touchy subjects, since one had scarred her and the other was eluding her. "Any mother with half a heart would do the same." Just like that, she was ready. That little girl needed Jo and JoAnna needed her.

She didn't bother knocking, just slipped in the door quietly and went to them, tucking her legs under her skirt as she sat down on the floor. He smiled that mesmerizing grin that was once so fleeting, but was making more and more appearances as things got better for them. "R-r-rosie, this is my wwwife, Jojo. JoAnna, this is R-rosie."

"Hi Rosie," JoAnna said, a tremble coming into her voice. Eli grabbed her hand and wove their fingers together. "You know, roses are one of my favorite flowers, I love the way they smell." The child stood up and walked around the two of them, inspecting the newcomer. She touched Jo's dark hair, the buttons on her dress, the watch that hung on a chain around her neck. Jo heard a little whimper before Rosie's face pressed into the back of her hair. She breathed deeply and came back around to the front, mumbling something and miming smelling her hand. She hid her face, three months of being told her way was wrong after five years of being told she was perfect was starting to show. She was ashamed. "Your mama smelled like my soap too, huh?" Jo asked. She nodded and Eli watched them, fascinated. Rosie had tears in her big green eyes. "She must have liked it because it reminded her of you." She took a step closer, her full little rosebud of a mouth trembling and Jo pulled her in. It never occurred to her to do anything else. "Do you want to tell me about her?" Rosie's face lit up and she launched herself into an animated frenzy of sounds that no one understood a lick of beyond 'mama.' She looked up expectantly.

Her green eyes, her tangles, her bottom tooth that was wiggly and would soon fall out, they were all casting a spell on the young woman. "If you tell me again and go slow, I will learn. We just met, but you ask Eli, I'm a quick learner." The child looked up at him curiously and he winked at her. She never left JoAnna's lap the rest of the afternoon, talking in her mumbled, hard to understand way and drawing pictures when Jo didn't understand. Eli hardly said anything, but when he did, he let himself stammer without shame in front of her. They were all disappointed when Cici came in and told them it was time for Rosie to go to supper.

They walked back towards the Benjamin, hand in hand. "It sssseeemed c-cruel too take you there," he said. "All...all those b-babies no one wwwwanted..." He stopped and pulled her close. She wanted a baby of her own so badly.

"I understand why you did it," I whispered as his mouth moved to cover hers.

They went to The Foundling every day, and Rosie improved almost every day. She wasn't much more understandable, but she was more patient, more happy. Every day it was harder to leave her to go back to the Benjamin. The night before Race and Clara's wedding, they had to tell her that they wouldn't be able to come the next day, and Jo tried not to sob just as hard as the little girl did as the sisters unwrapped her from around JoAnna's legs.

Even the new dress that was delivered while they were away didn't make her feel better. It was powerless against the pain in her heart that was breaking for a little girl who had no one left. Her fingers ran along the hand embroidered roses and Jo thought of her. The deep green of the silk reminded her of Rosie's eyes. Eli buttoned her into it and she tried to let herself feel the way she did with Clara. He saw what she wanted him to. He traced the roses with his finger and smiled. 'Beautiful.' She still blushed like a schoolgirl at his compliments. 'Don't be sad, she'll be there when we come back." Her breath came out shaky and slow. "T-try to be happy, Jo. For R-Race and Clara..."

The wedding was beautiful and by the time they got to the reception, Jo had almost convinced herself to give in and enjoy the night. They sat at tables peppered around the Renwick's lavish gardens and she caught Racetrack's eye and pointed to the lone squirrel hiding in the pride of topiary lions, sharing a laugh that made Clara scowl. Eli was staring at something that no one else seemed able to see. His azure eyes were trained on a shadowy part of the gardens for a long while before he excused himself and went over. It was only once he stopped and was talking to someone that she could see the dark man who was hiding there. Eli smiled at her, and the man, his eyes not nearly so blue as Eli's, but just as startling because of their contrast to his deeply olive skin, followed his gaze. She blushed under their scrutiny for a moment before a hand came to rest gently on her shoulder.

Scott Renwick stood over her, his ginger hair, just a tiny bit more auburn than Clara's with his hand out. "Might a spoiled milksop have a dance?" His emerald eyes glimmered playfully.

She blushed and chuckled under her breath, "Of course, thank you, Scott." He led her out on the floor and twirled her around artfully, the cad.

"Was it always Eli?" he asked in a low voice, "Even way back when?"

"It's only ever been Eli."

With gentle hands and the expert steps of a boy trained for nothing in particular, he led her around the floor. "Funny guys, these newsboys. They suck us in. We come from the best, and yet we're always out there looking for more, because even with all of this around us, we're not actually happy. There's always something lacking."

"Adventure," She answered, leaning back into a gentle dip. Her body still knew just what to do. The steps came easily and they glided seamlessly across the brick patio. "Upper class life is so...placid. We crave adventure, and when we can't find it under all the stuffy clothes and decorum and brandy and tea cakes, we have to go make it for ourselves, whether with books and stories or wild card games with gang lords," She shot him a knowing look and he grinned sheepishly.

"Or making friends with newsboys," he added with a jerk of his head towards Race, Mush, Blink and Jack. "They have nothing, they come from nothing, and yet I can't imagine my life without them, Race and his buddies. They're like the brothers I never had. They know what family is supposed to be like." He looked at their joined hands. "I would have taken care of you, just so you know, if your mother had managed to make us happen. You would have been fine in our family."

"I would have been fine, but I would have hate you for it," She answered. "What I did made no sense, but I don't really regret it. I ended up with the best family I could have ever wished for because I ran. Eli and Spot, Darcy, Marta and Fletcher, they collected each other, like treasures in a museum and I'm honored to have been considered a worthy addition to their collection."

He smiled, "You really are one of them. Our kind, blood, breeding is everything, but you were always different." He smiled, "A rare antiquity, and they should consider themselves damn lucky to have been found worthy of protecting you." Without another word, he gave her one final spin and handed her off into Eli's waiting arms.

"Cutting in again, I see." He grinned and pulled her close. He still had perfect timing and danced like a dream even though they didn't get much practice. Wrapped back in Eli's arms, everything was more right, everything made more sense. JoAnna leaned into him, listening to his heart, but her heart was yelling more loudly than ever. Scott's words about family were on repeat in her head like a skipping gramophone spool. She would be so lucky to have a beautiful green eyed, Rose in her collection. "Eli, do you need a baby?" She blurted out, suddenly, wincing at her own abruptness. His grip tightened around her back and she squeezed his hand until the blood pooled in his fingertips turning them purple. "I don't think it will ever happen. Two marriages, no lack of trying, and not so much as a miscarriage. It's made me sad and angry, but someone reminded me that you and I have always been better off with the family we made, not the one we were given." Her eye caught Race's and he danced with Clara and he winked, giving her courage to keep going. "Maybe we're supposed to be collectors, finding our babies, just like we found the rest of our family."

He stopped and held her out at arm's length, searching her face for what she meant. As the moments passed, more and more excitement filtered in. 'Go on,' he signed.

"Rosie. She's ours. That's my baby, and I'm not leaving New York without her. We are her family, Eli. You and I."

He grinned. "A-are you d-d-done?" Her heart melted because his smile didn't falter. He pulled her back in, until his lips were right next to her ear, whispering against her skin as he murmured, "Let's go get our girl," without a single stutter.

Jo wanted to run through the streets but, the blazing August afternoon, the prettiest dress she'd owned in her adult life and the two glasses of champagne she had with her cake overruled her romanticism enough to let Eli hail a cab, pulling up in front of The Foundling just as the sisters were coming out to lock the front doors. The Mother Superior had supper to oversee and evening prayers, but put that aside to push Rosie's paperwork through. She wanted Rosie to have a home as badly as they did. The young couple might be her only chance.

Rosie fell asleep between them in the carriage, one hand tucked in his big one and the other tightly gripping a handful of green silk from JoAnna's skirt. The child rolled over and nestled in, and a soft sigh left her lips as she murmured, "Na-nigh, Mami." He reached the arm that wasn't acting as her pillow over to Jo, asking with his eyes for her to help him use it to cup her face in it. This was where they belonged. They had their perfect life, their garden of roses grown up out of the rubble of the Brooklyn streets, discarded pearls and taffeta and the burned out shells of other lives that weren't meant to be. All of those disasters, they were the perfect fertilizer for a bird and a fish to grow their own Happily Ever After.


End file.
